I’ve worked for a newsletter-type market service for over 9 years now, and while it’s great pay, flexibility, low oversight, etc., my career is stagnating here. The city I currently live in has virtually no options for charterholders(at least good options), but I’m moving to Madison, WI in a little over a year. Just going through the online CFA directory, I’ve come up with a list of over 30 different firms where charterholders work in that market, which is obviously a huge upgrade from where I am now. So to my question…
How do I make myself attractive to these potential employers? I don’t have any big-firm experience and this is the only company that I’ve worked for since finishing grad school(both undergrad and grad degrees are from a low-tier public university). Given that my current firm doesn’t actually manage money, the experience isn’t very desirable to most funds. I did play poker professionally(with a good amount of success) for about 5 years, so that’s something I can lean on, but outside of my CFA charter and that, I don’t have much to make myself stand out to them. I could obviously spam my CV to all of these firms and hope to get lucky, but are there any other things that I can do to make myself more attractive to these money-management firms? I’m in my late 30s now and fear that if I don’t make a career jump soon then I’ll end up stuck and will have to either rely on my present employer indefinitely or take a massive pay cut for a job that I really don’t want.