I know having the CFA is great and it opens a ton of doors. On the otherhand, how limited do you think people are if they lack the CFA? Is this a major hinderance for career development? I’m about to fail level 2 for the third time and I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Life > tests.
sorry, having the CFA charter doesn’t open a ton of doors. at best, it gives you a slight nudge if you managed to get more than a foot in the doorway.
having work experience is what opens doors.
The only career path I see where you may be limited is in portfolio management. someone that doesn’t have stellar returns to show, but someone ready to run money. having the CFA behind you will help here, attracting funds, or as a private wealth manager
yeah, I agree with itera, and I’m just taking Level II.
I got laid off by reasonably ‘dumb mother----f…ers’ last year, and they are in control for whatever reason.
Better social skills… ya’ know… even the Prez of the firm when asked by a kid out of college if he should get his MBA, responded, "know, you don’t need that here…etc,’’’ this is a large mid cap public brokerage…
so, what I’m doing the CFA for is for my own challenge and knowledge at this point…
I’m Broken!
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that the CFA is guaranteed to start you off with $300,000 and VP title, but I’d have to check to see if that source is reliable.
A top MBA is exponentially better than a CFA for career transition due to the power of on-campus recruiting, name brand, and the network. A CFA is valuable for the knowledge base you acquire, but it’s become oversaturated, and don’t think that just having the CFA will get you an interview at citadel/wellington/capital group/pimco/aqr.
go look at some job postings and see the line where they say “CFA required” or preferred or similar verbage.
There are tons of roles that do not require the CFA, as noted above. There are also plenty that do. For me, I always liked the idea of being able to be considered for those…
At the end of the day there are 100k CFAs and over a million finance jobs, so it certainly isnt a requirement for you to work, but I feel a lot better with it behind my name.
for those of you you belive that the CFA charter has no value, what are you even doing in this forum? If it has no value, wouldn’t it be rational for you to be spending your scarest resource(your time) doing something that actually does add value?
If it wouldn’t have add value, there wouldn’t be neary 150,000 people taking the exams every 6 months( don’t quote me on that number). How do you explain that? sheer irrationality? It does add value, and value is, as you should all probably know, a pretty subjective concept. There’s no public market where you can check the price of the CFA charter. Instead, the value to YOU, or to your employer or prospective employer, or prospective client, or client, or vendor, or co-workers in the form of respect, is what you make of it. Don’t expect the charter to be the magic formula to solve all your problems. In fact, most of us are in our 20s and 30s and believing that the ultimate goal in our professional lives can be achieved at that age is pretty pathetic. The CFA designation does add value, but you are the one who will really influence how much value it can add to your career and your story.
^
1,000% agree
i’m going to play devils advocate… flamers gas up your flame throwers…
hundreds of millions of people play lottery.
chances of winning are 1 in 175M.
people are clearly irrational.
/end debate
This question will always be asked and the same answer will always be given.
It all depends on the exact job you are looking for. Equity Research, Portfolio Management, Investment Consulting. These are a must for have. In Canada, you will actually need the CFA chartered to even become a registered investment personnel with the OSC and a lot of other countries are following suit.
These jobs no one cares if you have a CFA charter. IB, Sales and Trading, Private Equity, hedge fund, real estate, etc.
So you get the point, it all depends on the exact role. I would say where I work, 90% of the people have the CFA. It doesn’t open doors, it just puts you on an equal playing field with everyone else