It’s quite an early stage in my career (3 years), I have some experience in Corporate Finance and is currently in the Equity Capital Markets. I’m sorta at a crossroad cause I recently failed my Level 2 exams (partially due to a lack of motivation, if I’m going to stay in ECM, there really isn’t that much value ascribed from a CFA charter)
My question is, if I want to transition into the buy side, does completing my CFA actually help me get a job on the buy side? or is the only route from research>fund management?
Hope I can get some honest insight here. Thanks guys.
The CFA is icing on a cake, it’s never going to be the reason you land the buyside job.
THe CFA helps most as a last filtering tool, if it’s down to last few people, and they can’t really decide who they like more, this could be a tie breaker.
Hmm. seems like the reward-to-effort ratio of CFA is really low in my case haha. I am looking to relocate to Singapore though so I will need any miniscule edge I can get.
it is low. Just thinking about it logically, there’s simply nowhere near enough job openings for all the CFA candidates in the world hoping to break into buyside or research etc… So by definition, a lot of candidates will fail. 110k CFA charterholders, and then double that number for candidates… that’s a lot of people. And everyone wants a good job.
Those that land the jobs they want largely got in for some other reason. The CFA program may have been 3% of the reason, or 25% at most, I find it hard to believe it will exceed that.
It’s all about your peers. if someone is desperate to hire, and you’re in the right place at the right time and you look great vs other candidates, then you have a great shot.
My sentiments exactly. In the future term however, I think that NOT having a CFA is actually going to work against me as more and more investment professionals gain charters. It’s a horrible reason, but I feel like continuing with the charter just because I had already started on it and maybe, just maybe it might unlock opportunities for me. Thanks for your input itera.
If you’re already on the sell side, then the CFA will help you look more appealing buy side. I think itera’s knee-jerk anti-CFA attitude is more appropriate for those who have no finance experience at all, and even there, it did help me.
Remember that what the buy side wants is for you to be a star investment picker with an established track record, and for you to do that work for them for free. So part of the buyside’s strategy is to get you to tell them what you do, and then have them tell you it’s not really all that special. Sometimes they’re bluffing, sometimes they’re not.
I have had recruiters tell me that there are dozens if not hundreds of people that could do the kind of work they were interviewing me for. Of course, in six months of looking, they hadn’t actually found more than one, and that person wasn’t willing to change jobs. So take all this “you’re a useless piece fo cr•p” advice that you get from people with big grains of salt.
No doubt, it’s a lot of work to finish the program, and you’ll be getting more experience while you do it that may help as well. You also may learn about aspects of investing that are substantially outside of what you are doing in Corporate Finance. That’s where the value comes from.
To the OP. It seems like you have already made your decision on taking the CFA exams. As itera stated, the chances are low but it may help you one way or another. On the bright side, you may learn something you will keep for the rest of your life.
Now this logic I totally agree with. I’ve told prospective candidates and finance folks the same thing.
adding like +7k charterholders a year, exam pass rates going down, you get older, maybe new family members… etc etc it’s a bad mix that just makes it harder. getting it out the way earlier has many advantages.
Nothing wrong with trying to add an extra 5% to your cred, people just need to keep the bigger picture in mind, which is that the charter is not going to make or break landing a job r egardless of experience level. As a matter of fact, the more work experience you got especially in front office positions, the greater weight your expereince is.
I give more credit for passing CFA exams for an entry level hire vs a highly experienced candidate.