I’m looking to transition from Finance into Data Science and it occurred to me that I might be better served by actually leaving the CFA charter off of my resume / LinkedIn. It would pain me to do that since I put a lot of work into earning the charter… but I also think that it tends to pigeonhole me as a Finance guy and doesn’t really do me any favors when I’m looking to move out of Finance.
Any thoughts?
Don’t take it off.
Shake it off.
I have three different versions of my resume and I either get “oh you have a CFA” or people just don’t know what it is. At this moment I’m trying to transition out of my career and yes, I’m often viewed as the equity/investment guy who can build a fin model.
I assume transitioning careers happens all of the time (hence why we get a lot of IT coming to this site). It’s interesting to see a lot of finance guys/gals switching to tech and data science. My buddy just went to point72 in their data science division after +5yrs in ER.
I’ll probably stay in finance for awhile, if not forever, but I see the growing benefit of having data science and programming skills. I can see it becoming a new standard much like knowing excel today is. As such, I’ve committed myself to taking several courses over the next few years, as well as, some higher level maths.
To answer your question, if you’re specifically looking at a data science role, then you probably want to leave the CFA off; this really depends though what type of data science role we are talking about.
this is retarded. if you earned an mba or phd would you leave that off your resume???
Yeah don’t take it off. You could run into many jobs especially at Banks that integrate IT and Finance (or Data Science - whatever you’re doing)
^very altruistic of you
lolol
Furthermore it could potentially brand me as being too expensive – when in reality I’d definitely take a pay cut for the right position.
How do you feel when you see a cheap sweater you like for $29.99? How do you feel when you see a high quality sweater is 80% off and marked down to $29.99 because summer is approaching? The latter feels good for everyone, my friend.
Don’t think its as ludicrous as you think. I got by a few rounds of interviews with a PE firm for an operational type role. I ended up getting turned down and the HR guy told me it was because the hiring manager said it was because I have a CFA. He didn’t think a CFA would be interested in such a role. Quote un quote from hiring manager.
^be glad you dont work at that hacksaw shop
This is very common. Be glad. They are looking for someone to work on the assembly line.