Hey guys, I passed CFA Level 3 this year and I got my working experience rejected last week because of a lack of details. What do you think of the description below? Any comments are welcome! I will have 4 years of experience in October 2010. I have been working in IT developing front office/middle office systems that are used in the investment management process in XXXX & yyyy companies. I had the opportunity to work on systems covering different activities such as stock lending & borrowing as well as derivatives. I could successfully deal with such different activities, thanks to the knowledge I gained within the CFA curriculum, which covers a broad range of fields in finance. I had also the opportunity to have several roles during these last years on both the technical and functional sides: starting as a developper, then moving to the business analysis side, and then having more reponsibilities by being appointed as a Project Manager. The information I learned, while pursuing the CFA program, allowed me to work on sevral Front to Back projects, in order to help different users in the investment management process Please find below some additional details regarding my working experience, during which I have been standing on the IT side, gathering users requirements, specifying the solutions aimed to help in the investment making process, contributing in defining target setups, and helping end users perform testing/validation. July 2009- Present XXXX company, Paris Project Manager on STP Securities Project. In charge of : • Setting a Straight Through Processing setup for Over the Counter Deals. • Specification of a solution for a Front to Back Full STP setup on Corporate Actions Management. • Budget allocation exercise and Steering Committees organization. Business Analyst on Equity Swaps implementation within an in house booking tool. • Gathering Business Requirements with users Front to Back. • Interviewer of IT teams and Participating in defining the target setup. • Provider of Detailed Functional Specifications. IT-Middle Office worldwide coordinator in charge of smoothing IT-MO communication. August 2008- June 2009 XXXX company, Paris Business Analyst in charge of conceiving an Allocation tool intended for US SLAB Users Front to Back aimed to cover Clients’ short positions and report related PnL. • Responsible for gathering Business Requirements. • Defined the target solution then provided its Functional Specifications and coordinated the UAT Phase. • Ensured the support following the Go Live. April 2007- July 2008 YYYY company, Paris Business Analyst in charge of communicating traders’ expectations to IT teams. • Responsible for suggesting new enhancements to users and gathering Business Requirements. • Defined the solutions and provided the Functional Specifications for users’ change requests. • Coordinator of Users Acceptance Tests with traders in Paris, London, Milan and Frankfurt • Conductor of Peer Reviews on Functional Specifications provided by other Business Analysts of the team. • Quality Management (project documents update and traceability enhancement). • Release of a User Guide aimed to offer an overview of the different tool’s features. October 2006- March 07 YYYY company, Paris Developer Analyst on two systems: a collateral management tool intended for account managers and a Lending & Borrowing tool for traders’ use. • In charge of providing Technical Specifications of requested features and developing new enhancements in both projects. • Coordination with development, business Analysis and Production teams. Thanks a lot for your help! M.
Take out your books and relate each duty to specific LOS. Then you are good.
CFA Jay Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Take out your books and relate each duty to > specific LOS. Then you are good. hello CFA Jay, thanks for your reply. what do you mean by relating each duty to an LOS? I take my business analyst position on equity swaps and I say, Derivatives LOS within teh CFAI curriculum helped me a lot in this positions? For Stock lending, I mention repos… thanks! M.
CFA Jay Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Take out your books and relate each duty to > specific LOS. Then you are good. I think it was joke malek!
onelasttime Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > CFA Jay Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Take out your books and relate each duty to > > specific LOS. Then you are good. > > > I think it was joke malek! It’s not a joke.
soddy1979 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > onelasttime Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > CFA Jay Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > Take out your books and relate each duty to > > > specific LOS. Then you are good. > > > > > > I think it was joke malek! > > It’s not a joke. hey guys, so it is a joke or it is not? 
thanks for your help! M.
I think those details are great. Good luck! Let us know how it goes. I’m really concerned they won’t like my experience either.
It’s not a joke. You need to describe how your duties aid in the investment decision making process and be as specific as possible. For example you say: Project Manager on STP Securities Project. In charge of : • Setting a Straight Through Processing setup for Over the Counter Deals. • Specification of a solution for a Front to Back Full STP setup on Corporate Actions Management. This does not clearly indicate what you ‘did’ exactly. For example, Were you a manager who was overseeing the project management activities of this project? Or were you a business analyst that said the software should handle a over the counter deal in a specific way to satisfy a business need thereby aiding in the investment decision making process? Did you provide a solution (a business logic for the software) that directly had an impact in the investment decision making process? If yes, what percentage of your job responsibilities assisted in investment decision making? and how long were you doing it? While studying the curriculum, many people could directly relate to many concepts that their daily duties demand. If you did feel that way, it may be advantageous to pick out those LOS that relate to your job duties and write your experience in CFAI terminology as to how it relates to the investment decision making process. Also you need to rethink about generic statements in the experience details like - Responsible for gathering Business Requirements - that doesn’t convey anything specific about the duties.
they also keep rejecting my experience “need more details” ,…i don’t know what to do
I just passed L3 and need advice on whether ‘Project Finance’ experience in a bank would be a suitable work-ex. We give long term loans to projects such as power plants, roads, ports etc… I haven’t yet applied to CFA institute for verification of my work-ex as my exp is less than 48 months. Any suggestion would be really helpful. regards, bissvr
bissvr Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I just passed L3 and need advice on whether > ‘Project Finance’ experience in a bank would be a > suitable work-ex. We give long term loans to > projects such as power plants, roads, ports etc… > I haven’t yet applied to CFA institute for > verification of my work-ex as my exp is less than > 48 months. > > Any suggestion would be really helpful. > > regards, > bissvr I have similar experience (corporate loans, project finance), although i have (hope they would count ) 39-40 months. Could you please let me know what was result of your application? My email agida99 at gmail. Thanks.
hey guys, Last week, I had Rejected as a status on the CFAI account when I go to Check Application Status link, I submitted additional details (posted above) last week as well to provide them with additional details. I saw this weekend that both “rejects” disappeared from the “check application status” page, and that my application was accepted to become an affiliate member (I submitted 47 months only). How can I know whether the whole experience I submitted was accpted or only a part of it? thanks a lot! M.
why do you have random consonants capitalized in your job descriptions?
builders Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > why do you have random consonants capitalized in > your job descriptions? hey builders, you’re right, I should remove these capitalized consonants/ I will add some details before re submitting th work experience once again thanks! M.