Looking for some career guidance.

Water Cooler Careers
#1

Hello all,

Moved out from New York City from San Diego back in 2015 and working as a financial advisor while working on passing off the level 3 of the CFA. Took the exam this a few weeks back and either did really well or I experienced a heavy dose of overconfidence bias and failed miserably. Under the assumption that I passed, I am looking to transition into a job that is more analytical and markets/economics focused. I want to have more intelligent conversations than I am now having with clients or colleagues about investing. I have been very successful in my current role and several of my clients have randomly suggested I teach a college course on investing since they feel I do such a good job on communicating to them and I don’t come across as a typical financial advisor trying to shove them into a product and actually welcome the “intention” of the DOL changes.

I am in my mid 30’s but look like I’m in my mid to late 20’s which can work against me in financial advising but could work for me if I wanted to start over in another area of finance.

My issue is this: I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I just know that I love finance and investing and that was a big reason for pursuing the CFA, not to mention any incremental benefit it provides.

Can anyone shed some light on what area of Investment Banking/Asset Management I should look into?

Areas of interest:

  1. Equity Research: Although EVERY job online asks for a minimum of 2-3 years of experience.
  2. Credit Research: I would actually prefer this over equity research but again 2-3 years required experience.
  3. Anything in the ETF world that is not BO or MO. I have long believed that ETF’s were going to do damage to mutual funds and the active space.
  4. Trading: The problem though, is like any research position, it seems to be trending to automation.
  5. Any type of job where a majority or much of my time is spent meeting with more sophisticated clients than would be the case in the retail world.
  6. If I had to do it all over again I would have focused my energy on getting into a Market Strategist type of position. I loved reading Russ Koesterich of BlackRock when he was putting out market forecasts.
  7. I don’t mind staying in sales but just need a more market savvy audience to converse with.
  8. I am also interested in the semi-active/enhanced index space but can’t seem to find any information about careers in that area. Any places you could point me to would be helpful.

Thanks for your advice and wisdom.

#2

I read this three times. What exactly does it mean? You moved out of NYC and San Diego? Where are you now?

#3

Sorry. I moved out from San Diego to* NYC. I am currently living in NYC.

#4

IMO, you have two choices. Continue as an FA, which as you’ve noted can be quite lucrative (you said you’re successful, so I’m assuming you’re making good money). Option #2 is going back to school for an MBA. This is the best (only?) way to make any of the transitions you mentioned.

#5

Hi, Sara Grillo. We haven’t heard from you for some time.

Anyway, what do you mean by saying you are “successful” as an FA? If you can raise $100 million, you can start a fund and manage it however you want. Intellectual work is pretty overrated though, in my opinion.

I doubt that it is worth it to go back to school and become some $100k ER associate.

#6

Financial Advisor jobs could be nearly extinct in ten years.

#7

Well I don’t know about in 10 years with the baby boomer generation still in transition but I do agree that Machine Learning will eventually put a lot of those in finance jobs out of work.

#8

Sara Grillo? Ha ha. That’s funny, as I just discovered her on youtube last month (pondering/searching this very topic) otherwise I would have no idea who you were talking about.

Sorry about the use of a subjective term like “successful”. I mean to say that I have done well in my current job when compared to my peers.

If I do decide to pursue a research analyst position, made some good contacts at a couple of firms, draft up a research report on a stock to take into an interview, made a good argument for that stock, is it still a waste of time when the interviewer sees I have graduated from college 5 years ago and have the background of financial advising? Have any of you personally seen people make that jump, albeit even if only a handful of people do it?

#9

Ohai gives great advice on the base rates for situations. But the dispersion of outcomes around that rate is wide. If you really want to do research, then grind hard. Identify the top things that would be most impactful to getting the job and spend the same amount of time you would have studied for CFA level 4 to achieve those things. Also may want to consult with a career coach like Numi, since they can help with that efficiency of the process