Is it legal to terminate an employee due to the fact that they haven’t acquired their CFA designation after 5 years of employment? Employment agreement is “at will.” At the time of hiring there was no discussion or disclosure of this supposed policy, which was not instituted or brought to there attention until this year. Nice to be at there mercy of the CFAIs inability to test it’s candidates knowledge of curriculum, but instead tests the knowledge of they’re ability to decipher what the h@ll half of the vague, ambiguous questions are even asking.
i don’t think it is illegal, but I can’t imagine a company doing that to someone.
“At will” means you can be terminated at any time. They do not need a reason to terminate you, so yes it is legal
my teammate at work just failed series 7 second time last week and now getting scared that she may be let go. I doubt that passing an exam has any correlation with keeping a job. Performance counts first.
jayjay77 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > “At will” means you can be terminated at any time. > They do not need a reason to terminate you, so > yes it is legal +1
Definitely legal. They can fire you because they don’t like the color of your socks.
Figured as much, but has anyone heard of similar instances? Not told at time of hire is what gets me. And 5yrs means you can only fail one test one time. And job performance was above average otherwise from what I understand.
ox10 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Figured as much, but has anyone heard of similar > instances? Not told at time of hire is what gets > me. And 5yrs means you can only fail one test one > time. And job performance was above average > otherwise from what I understand. Only argument you would have is if they treated another employee differently and you could attribute your being fired to something illegal (race, religion, etc.).
you can fire someone on the basis of performance. failing series 7 a second time is reasonable grounds to be fearful of your job.
Well series 7 is one test with “normal” pass rates and doesn’t take 4yrs to acquire. Plus some people legally have to have it to perform their job duties. I know it’s legal, but shady as hell. Obviously, I’m not very objective here.
I can see employers doing this.
s7 is a different story. kinda license thing. u need to have it. it is similar to can i drive while i don’t have drivers license. cfa is all voluntary. technically they cannot fire you because u failed to get it in 5 years. but i guess in real world, they will find some other reasons to let-go. of course you can always find a lawyer and sue the employer. i think u can always get something out of it.
completely agree w/Boris. Series is SEC requirement for trading on desk … if you don’t have it, you can’t even answer the phone on desk - why does desk need you in that case?
Boris = right. Series 7 = legally required for your job (assuming you need it for trading/securities work). So they have to fire you or reassign you if you dont have it.
The series 7 is so easy that you deserve to be fired if you fail it twice.
Super I Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The series 7 is so easy that you deserve to be > fired if you fail it twice. Yet some people still manage to fail it multiple times, even people in GS’s analyst class etc. It sort of reduces my faith in the finance industry.
ox10 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well series 7 is one test with “normal” pass rates > and doesn’t take 4yrs to acquire. Plus some > people legally have to have it to perform their > job duties. I know it’s legal, but shady as hell. > Obviously, I’m not very objective here. I can definitely see this happen. I’d ask, why WOULD an employer keep an employee around if he cannot pass the CFA in 5 years. Say you are hired fresh out of graduating from NYU as an equity analyst. Its pretty clear to me and I am sure all of you here, that CFA program and its curriculum is pretty useful if one is gunning to be a successful analyst. Given, that so many of us here are busting are chops, then some of us get out and pass the CFA, whats the point in keeping an analyst around if he cannot pass the CFA. Now ofcourse, the employer is not stupid. If he feels, the analyst is awesome at predicting numbers, deciphering annual reports, 8ks etc and very valuable team member, then he obviously will keep him around. Infact he would want him around. But say he is a crappy analyst, and on top of that couldn’t pass the CFA, and you as manager are consntantly getting bombarded with resumes of people who claim they passed all 3 levels, why in the world would you keep that lowly analyst around? That’s my question. Some folks here think PM job is the ultimate. I think that way too. But there is one more fact. On average a portfolio manager of a fund keeps his jobs for only 3-4 years. Why? Cause they underperform, and sponsors dont have so much patience to lose or underperform the benchmark year in and year out. Very few fund managers are successful and they are the famous ones. I’d definitely like to be a fund manager one day, but I also know, that my current job is lot more secure. If you are managing someone’s money or are making research recommendations, then the employer does not need to disclose to you before he hires that he might expect you to up your knowledge, or also prove that you have upped the knowledge by passing the CFA. Its a tough world out there. Analyst job is not a government job where you are guranteed job for life and then a pension until you die!!!
Assuming you study around 6 months for level 1 you could fail two levels and still meet the 5 year time horizon. If you time it right with Dec test you could fail three times and still come in at 5 years.
“Its pretty clear to me and I am sure all of you here, that CFA program and its curriculum is pretty useful if one is gunning to be a successful analyst.”
“If you time it right with Dec test you could fail three times and still come in at 5 years” stop talking about my CFA path mwvt9. 
granted, if i thought my employer was going to can me if i failed any level, i probably would’ve put in more time. i do like pressure. we’ve fired folks here for failing their 7 more than once. that’s just embarrassing. cfa at least is a tough test. if i do fail this year, that’s exactly how i’m going to finish up. 5 years. 5 glorious years. started dec '06. man time flies. i don’t study as hard as most on this board though.