How much better are job opportunities for Level III candidates vs. Level II? Does anyone have actual instances of experiencing this first hand? ie after you cleared LII, more opportunities became available or you were getting more interviews for better positions…
You know, I used to think it did not matter. However, the minute I received my L2 pass results, Jeff Bezos from the future appeared in a time machine. Apparently, my CFA credential made me the most important person to save the world from a future catastrophe. Secret fact: the purpose of Amazon is to develop drone technology for a robot army to protect the Earth from Cthulu. Only a few people know the truth. Long story short, it did help my career, as I was appointed assistant regional manager for the anti Cthulu global defense, Livermore California chapter.
Another thing that happened is that, upon seeing my pass email, my girlfriend resigned as she was no longer worthy, and she even brought in a Ukrainian model as a replacement.
No difference, I interviewed when i had level 1 and level 2, it didn’t give me any edge for passing level 2. i think the difference will come after you pass level 3. When it come to career opportunity it really depends on the person and a bit of luck.
how was the pay? Comparable to bigger firms or did you take a pay cut on a relative basis?
I got a call today and was asked prescreen questions for a trader/research role. RIA with 6 employees and over $100MM AUM. I’ll probably take it if offered and salary is competitive
It was very low, probably on the low side of any finance job out there but I didn’t negotiate because I just needed to break in somewhere. Nice people, very grateful they gave me a chance.
Coming from hedge fund world which is significantly different from RIA world, a hedge fund with fewer people - around 6 people - is the sweetspot. This means they manage around $400M and say you guys hit the high water mark and returned 15% for the year. This means the owner of the fund just made $18M - $12M (20% of 15%) and $6M (mgmt fees) - to be divided by very small group of people. So this is why our CFO/COO made 850k in bonus and trader received 300k in bonus and analysts including myself in the 500k bonus range. Even then the owner made a killing. This was the case in the bull years after my undergrad which the bull run is still going. Great timing on my part.
But since RIA’s are prohibited from taking incentive fees, the pay for its minions is probably positively correlated to the AUM it manages unlike that of hedge funds.
Also, traders at my previous funds were no more and no less than say brokers for your home sales. He would litterally call traders at brokerage firms (Goldman, JPM, Gugg, etc) who are sell side traders and ask them if they have parties to fill our orders…Essentially what residential and commercial brokers do - broker between buyer and seller, hence, they are called brokerage firms
BUT again this is different at RIA shops where trader and research can be combined into one position which is something you never (i have never seen one myself) see at hedge funds. Usually when the trader is out, the senior person in back office (director of operations) acts as a trader.
Yeah well that all sounds great, but I do not have the pedigree to work at a hedge fund. Not somewhere like NYC anyway. Based on the job description, it does sound like “Trader” is used as what you are describing, operational and not like an actual wall street trader. This may be because they are small at $100MM AUM and just want to combine it with a research role as well, idk.
That is totally fine too. As I have said before on AF, I started at HF out of undergrad but my job was not research…I was literally an excel monkey which is lower than back office. Change this change that put some blue color into that tab this tab…I just asked tons of questions and listened to research analysts and got the real job after 6 months and with LOT of luck of BULL market. So the moral of the story is to give it 100% no matter bc you never know where it will lead you next.
I could have half assed and probably got sick of it and quit after a year at which point i had no real skills or experience and probably ended up doing some very back office work.