Have CFA exams or charter helped you? If so, how?

Informal poll - has passing all 3 or some CFA exams, and/or getting the CFA charter, helped you in your job / in bars / in your mental state / anywhere else? If so, how?

For me, just in the satisfaction of being 3/3 in exams (no charter because no work exp). Maybe one day in valuation of securities.

Yes, I am constantly appying the info I am learning to valuing stock. At least trying to. If I wasn’t learning this stuff from cfa, I would be lost. I am ready for l2 and l3 material.

Passing the 3rd test helped me get my first job on the buyside. The knowledge did not help me at all. Real investing is a lot different than academic investment concepts. I worked for maybe the best stock picker ever so I think I am qualified to say that. To me the Charter feels like it would be useful for someone in an asset allocation role such as at a pension fund. I don’t know anyone in the business who thinks it’s really useful at a long / short fund except people who have no work experience at long / short funds. So it helped me get where I needed to be and I guess in the scheme of my life the 1,000 hours or whatever it took to pass is not that much for content I will never use… at least I keep telling myself that. If I went to a better school I wouldn’t have had to do it.

^Yes. The Schweser materials and exam fees kept my personal balance sheet from swelling, and the giant charter covers up a hole in the wall.

For where I am, I’d agree mostly with Bromion. I’m not sure if it helped me get my current job, probably not, since I’m not really in investment research/asset mgmt. I’m really doing L3 to just finish it since a) after L2 the marginal cost wasn’t meaningful; b) maybe it will help in my next role.

I haven’t really applied much if any of the knowledge in my job or personal life. Carrying those books around helped replace my visits to the gym.

smiley

Maybe someone can explain the constant bashing of the cfa on this forum. It seems like its the charterholders that are doing the bashing on top of that. l1 has been a huge help. Is l2 and l3 going to be a major disappointment? not sure what other designation would be more relevant to investment analysis. maybe mba or msf? But the non top 5 mbas are getting bashed on this forum as well. And it would take a miracle for me to get one of those maybe numi can write me a letter of rec to his school.

I came into finance from another industry. The CFA helped enormously to legitimize me at a much lower cost (both financial and opportunity) than an MBA. I’m currently debating an executive MBA. Part of me want to do it and rise through the leadership ranks and part of me wants to just save my time and money and focus on retiring from finance in ten or so years and trying something else on.

Yes, I can manage the hell out of my mom’s IRA.

Seriously though, even if I learned nothing (which I did and it has been very helpful), being in a sales job and having the letters after my name gives me a level of instant credibility with analysts…deservedly so or no.

What are you doing that L1 is such a huge help? L1 is nothing more than a sum of an undergrad finance major on one exam.

Has helped me a great deal! I would never have gotten into finance without passing a few levels. People in interviews are impressed.

If you start off knowing nothing about finance, then even basic knowledge of discounting, risk, and accounting might be helpful.

For most people, the CFA is probably only incrementally useful, proportional to its low cost. It boosts my resume by a little bit, but if I didn’t have it, I would be mostly the same. However, if you are 6 inches and could be 6.1 inches, then why not?

Good point, it helps with credibility in a lot of cases but not always:

I did talk to a billionaire the other day though and he was like, “Where did you go to school?”

I was like, “I went to a state school and am a CFA Charterholder.”

And he was like, “Who the hell cares?” (direct quote)

And then we laughed about it but I died a little bit in inside

Once people obtain a certain level of success, they have this bias/delusion that they got there due to their pure awesomeness.

I went to a top undergrad, but had an economics degree. CFA helped me combine the 2 fields and excel at entry level jobs. I knew things that other people were learning on the job. Passing the 3rd test and being smart helped me get my current job, where I’m very happy. Despite this I’m still considering a top MBA.

Yes, I knew a lot of economics but had no idea how to do valuation, and the portfolio optimization stuff was useful to me. It definitely helped build confidence that I knew something about asset management at a time when I didn’t have direct work experience. I interviewed at Lehman Brothers after passing L2 and the statement that I had taken and passed L2 basically turned the interview around: the guy was about to show me the door because of no work experience, but then ended up reconsidering based on that and ultimately offered the job. If Lehman hadn’t gone down the tubes and instituted a hiring freeze the week afterwards, I would have had a nice job because of it (this guy’s group got picked up by Barclays intact and is still doing well)

Is it enough on its own to get you a job in the industry if you don’t have work experience - typically not - but it made me more knowledgeable about stuff that would be hard to learn otherwise. For me, it was the right choice.

Just a junior analyst. I feel like if my boss told me to do something google would be my only resource. Now i have my l1 books and AF. Maybe it’s good for someone like me who didn’t pay attention in undergrad.

He probably doesn’t give a shit that you attended a state school either.

I didn’t say that, just named the school. He invested with me, apparently he didn’t give a shit.

I found CFA to be very helpful. But I wasn’t a finance major FWIW. When I started L1, I didn’t know what a Balance Sheet was.

^ It’s a good and cheap way to learn finance. Even cheaper than an associates degree. I wasn’t finance either, had to buy a finance calculator, learn TVM, and all that. Started from the bottom, now we here. Started from the bottom now my whole team ****in here.