Hi! New to the forum. I am not sure to take the level I and I need advice! A little background. I am international and I have 6 years of work experience (trading and research in commodities in a consumer good company) I have been recently admitted top-5 MBA program (starting in September 2011). Now I have a lot of free time and I was thinking in taking the level I in order to improve my resume. I would like to work as trader or in PE after my MBA. If I take the level I (and of course if I pass it) I am not going to be able to do the level II and III until I finish my MBA Should I study for the level I or relax, start reading books and prepare for the MBA and then take the CFA? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!
If you have enough free time that you can devote 250 hours to studying between now and June 4th, you should take a crack at Level I this spring. Don’t take the December exam though; an MBA is expensive and you should focus on it. Where are you going in September… Columbia? Kellogg? MIT ?
I agree, if you’ve got enough time to devote to it, do it. Then you’ll have a better idea of what the program’s about (although the levels differ from each other of course) and will be at least marginally better informed when it comes to thinking about a career path.
Traders don’t need the CFA charter. passing L1 doesn’t mean much anymore. I wouldn’t do it. This board is filled with CFA candidates who devoted hundreds of hundreds of hours to studying for the CFA, so you’ll get a “yes do it” bias. But in reality, if you definitely won’t take L2 and L3 for at least a couple of years, L1 won’t do anything for you
Agree with Captain and Wendy. If you are going to do it soon or later and have enough time for it, why not now? Matriculating to Booth maybe?
@iteracom . . . except allow you to finish Levels II and III sooner when you are able to take them, at a minimum (and I think it will do more for you than that). Personally I think that what you learn by studying the curriculum is worth the time and cost regardless of whatever value it may or may not add to your resume (the advice about which you get on here I’d definitely take with a big grain of salt). I certainly wouldn’t decide not to do it because you THINK you want to be a “trader” and anonymous folks on message boards say that “traders” don’t need the charter. You can of course decide not to do Levels II and III (a bigger savings of time and effort), or put them off, when you have a better idea of what their value will be to you after business school.
Captain Windjammer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think that what you learn by studying > the curriculum is worth the time and cost > regardless of whatever value it may or may not add > to your resume. Indeed.
iteracom Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Traders don’t need the CFA charter. passing L1 > doesn’t mean much anymore. > > I wouldn’t do it. This board is filled with CFA > candidates who devoted hundreds of hundreds of > hours to studying for the CFA, so you’ll get a > “yes do it” bias. > > But in reality, if you definitely won’t take L2 > and L3 for at least a couple of years, L1 won’t do > anything for you you sound like a sore loser
Maybe taking L1 will give you a good grasp of finance basics so you will ace your classes.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Maybe taking L1 will give you a good grasp of > finance basics so you will ace your classes. I look at it the other way. If you’re going to load up on finance, accounting, and econ electives as part of your MBA, wait until after your first year at school to take L1. You will have had a significant portion of the L1 curriculum in your classes and should be able to pass with minimal preparation.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Maybe taking L1 will give you a good grasp of > finance basics so you will ace your classes. Agreed. Not only ace the classes but give you a strong grasp of finance which will allow you to dig deeper in your classes. If you’re in a top 5 school you don’t want to waste your time working on how to reconcile a statement of cash flows. You can also concentrate on some of the softer skills set e.g. management, sales, networking, etc., which are the most important. B-school shouldn’t be wasted on technical study.
You got into a top 5 MBA program, which is much better than a CFA, all things being equal. I don’t think a CFA is necessary if you want to get into PE or trading.
Your time will be better spent schmoozing and doing investment-related activities. I guarantee that if you spend 100-200 hours on an extra-curricular at Stanford Business School or whatever, it will look better on your resume than CFA L1.
ohai Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Your time will be better spent schmoozing and > doing investment-related activities. I guarantee > that if you spend 100-200 hours on an > extra-curricular at Stanford Business School or > whatever, it will look better on your resume than > CFA L1. The OP is talking about doing Level I BEFORE he or she arrives at business school, so doing it will not have any impact on what he or she has time for DURING business school. I’d be curious what “extra-curricular” activities at a top-5 business school you think can have a material impact on someone’s resume, especially those that can be done in 100-200 hours.
Take it. Lots of good info that will give you a good background for your finance related classes. The majority of my coworkers have a top-10 MBA (HBS and Wharton are well represented) and I’d say >50% also have their CFA. The CFA will go after your name on a business card whereas an MBA won’t. If you’re networking (and therefore exchanging cards) then you likely won’t say where you went to B-school but the CFA will be noticed. Please note, I absolutely think that a top MBA will do more for your career than the CFA, but they’re not mutually exclusive. If you’re going to be in finance, then it’s likely the CFA will help in some fashion, even if it’s just for personal knowledge about general topics you don’t cover in your day-to-day activities.
Captain Windjammer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’d be curious what “extra-curricular” activities > at a top-5 business school you think can have a > material impact on someone’s resume, especially > those that can be done in 100-200 hours. I guess networking is one of them. Though, I didn’t went to B-School, but I guess networking is their forte. In my current job I have to do a lot of networking, and in my experience networking is a very very time and effort intensive exercise, if you really wish to make useful contacts.
Bernanke Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Captain Windjammer Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I’d be curious what “extra-curricular” > activities > > at a top-5 business school you think can have a > > material impact on someone’s resume, especially > > those that can be done in 100-200 hours. > > I guess networking is one of them. Though, I > didn’t went to B-School, but I guess networking is > their forte. In my current job I have to do a lot > of networking, and in my experience networking is > a very very time and effort intensive exercise, if > you really wish to make useful contacts. Read my post again. You don’t (or at least you shouldn’t) put networking on a resume, and taking Level I of the CFA BEFORE business school won’t affect one’s ability to network DURING business school.
Captain Windjammer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’d be curious what “extra-curricular” activities > at a top-5 business school you think can have a > material impact on someone’s resume… One of the MAIN things that employers look at when recruiting at business schools, are extracurriculars that show that the student is actually interested in the kind of career that they’re hiring for. Most business schools will have professional clubs similar to the following: •Finance Club •Investment Management Club •Quantitative Finance Club •Sales and Trading Club •Venture Capital and Private Equity Club If you apply for, say, a private equity job, but you’re not active in the VCPE club, you’re very unlikely to get the interview.
Fair enough, at least for purposes of on-campus recruiting - hard to imagine that having been in the PE club at HBS is going to have any real impact on a job search 5 year out of school, however. In any case, what do those clubs amount to, a meeting to hear a guest speaker once a month (I didn’t go to business school but that would be consistent with my professional school experience [though I may be exaggerating a bit for effect])? Or do you have to belong to all of them to cover your bases? And would that even work - can you submit resumes for recruiting on-campus by employment type, or do you just submit one version? Surely most employers would see through a resume entry saying: “•Finance Club •Investment Management Club •Quantitative Finance Club •Sales and Trading Club •Venture Capital and Private Equity Club”
By “see through” I mean understand that the candidate probably doesn’t have a burning passion (of the type all top-5 business school student surely have for something fascinating!) for all of those types of work and surely doesn’t have time for substantive participation in all of those clubs.