I’m an actuary working in state government. I will be receiving my Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries this year. After that I’d like to go through the CFA program. However, I believe I may have an issue with the Qualified Work Experience portion of the requirement.
Specifically, I do not work in the private sector and do not directly influence the investment decisions of any particular company. We do reviews of companies, and those reviews typically involve reviewing assets related to actuarial liabilities. Our regulatory directives or recommendations do end up influencing the company’s investments, but I’d gather this may be seen by the institute as indirect instead of direct influence.
I’ve reached out to the institute to get an opinion on my situation, but have been told nothing definitive could be done until I’ve basically passed the tests and applied for my charter.
My questions are:
- Would my work experience count?
- Will not working under a CFA severely affect the probability of my experience counting?
- Has anyone been in a similar situation, and what was the out come?
I understand I probably haven’t included enough information for anyone to make any strong opinions, but I wanted to get a sense of what was possible before going any further. Thank you in advance for your considerations.
E-mail CFA Institute and ask them: info@cfainstitute.org
"For a position to qualify, at least 50% of your time should be spent directly involved in the investment decision-making process or producing a work product that informs or adds value to that proces s. Work must be full time and can be earned before, during, or after participation in the CFA Program. ". I’m sure if you dig into your job description and responsibilities, you can find lotsa good asset related stuff, e.g. cash flow testing, ALM, VM-20, etc.
And congrats on the FSA!!! 
I doubt you will have any problem at all with the work experience side. You can get this signed off before you pass the exams. Specifically:
- Would my work experience count?
Yes. Just do the write-up carefully (and creatively).
- Will not working under a CFA severely affect the probability of my experience counting?
No, not at all.
- Has anyone been in a similar situation, and what was the out come?
Yes. I trained as an actuary also. All good and no issues.
This is essentially a self-certification exercise, supported by references (your referees writing a paragraph on you by email). Your referees don’t have to be CFAI members.
There are some details here (clearly written by an educationally-challenged CFAI illiterate who doesn’t know the difference between a “reference” and a “referee”):
https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/membership/apply/resources
Just join up as a CFA student. It will then be much easier to complete what is essentially nothing more than a rather tedious bit of admin.
Well done with the actuarial stuff. FSOA exams are 10x harder than CFA and you will already have covered much (possibly most) of the required material.
If you can qualify as a SOA Fellow, CFA will be just a breezy walk in the park for you.