Just a little bit of background on myself: I don’t come a finance background (majored in East Asian Studies in college), nor do I work in the finance industry (currently work in advertising). The material was brand new to me when starting this whole CFA path (I hate to say it, but I didn’t know what the difference was between the B/S, I/S, and CF/S when I started - they all looked the same to me!) I think I’m mostly bummed about failing because of the time and effort I put into the exam. I knew the material was challenging for me, but I half hoped my hard work would pay off. I’m thinking retaking the exam would be good - and if anything, just give me an opportunity to solidify a lot of these basic concepts - but what do you guys think? Do I stand a chance of passing in June?
And, in terms of my motivations for taking the exam:
I’m really hoping for a career change. The subject really interests me. I applied to a few entry level positions within the industry but there hasn’t been any bite. I think this is because there’s a lot of competition from new grads that are also applying that come from a finance background (on paper).
I was contemplating doing an MBA, but before the whole CFA thing, I was afraid I wouldn’t like the subject matter and didn’t really know what I want to do down the road. Taking the level 1 exam was cheaper alternative to see if I actually liked the material (I’m glad to say that I do!) and just make sure this was the industry I wanted to transfer into.
I think after having gone through this experience, I’ve learned that I’m interested in roles within the asset management / equity research space. Ideally, I’d love to start out working with like a Moody’s or S&P should I finally get my foot in the door.
Any input or guidance would be super helpful! Thanks!
Not to be rude but I think if you hadn’t scored over 70 in Ethics which I think the CFAI reallllly likes to see in candidates, you may have been band 4 or 5 with that matrix.
Did you use a third party provider? Schweser? Fitch? Wiley? at all? If you just read through all the CFAI curriculum and do a couple practice exams, that likely wouldn’t be enough.
I would suggest doing a third party provider like Schweser or Fitch and doing TONS of practice questions until you are scoring between 70-80 percent on Topic tests and Mocks. Once you get to that point and have done like atleast 4 Mocks the last month before the test and scoring in that range, you will know you are ready…
Iprofit4sure - No need to feel that you were rude. I appreciate the honest feedback! I used Schweser the first time around but I think I was spending a lot of time reading through the material and not doing enough practice problems/exams since I lacked the basic understanding of the material. When I took the exam I did 2.5 mock exams, but I was scoring in the 50s. I agree with your advice that this time around I need to focus more on practice problems and moving the needle up a bit more in the mocks. Thanks so much for your feedback!
I would rather spend some time learning the material properly if I were you. You’re from a completely non-finance background with a (presumably) non-numerate degree and scoring <50 in important, chunky topics like FRA, FI and quant. Never mind Level I, subsequent levels will build on these and you need to be fully comfortable with the underlying theory.
It seems like you already have a decent job, so why not defer until the December exam? Spend some serious time with the CFAI material for the first few months (particularly on the areas mentioned above) and make sure you fully understand what is going on, then switch to study notes, question practice, mocks etc. Just be careful in that the CFAI material can sometimes go into unnecessary detail, but having attempted the exam once you should be able to distinguish the important bits from the leisure reading.
Crito and Damil4real - thanks for your input! I agree 100%! Unfortunately, I signed up to retake the exam Satuday morning, so I just missed your posts. If anything though, it’ll be another learning experience. Hoping I’ll be able to squeeze some more fundamental learnigs before June, but if not, I can always retake in December/wait another year. Thank you both!