600+ hours = part time employment only?

CFA Level II
#21

^ Don’t mean to step on Phallacy’s toes, but I cover the oil and gas industry, too. There’s tons of capital investment in North American oil and gas right now. Tight oil, shale gas, oil sands and supporting infrastructure – that type of production requires very large capital investments so there’s demand for analysts to research financing that type of investment.

Advice? Move to Houston, TX – all of the big companies are there and there are jobs. It’s not like they are handing jobs out to unqualified people or anything, but there’s a lot of strength in that economy now.

#22

respect.

#23

Would gladly move to Houston but I live in the UK. Maybe in another life … with a cowboy hat.

#24

Junior year internship at a BB natural resources group sell side and a VC internship sophomore year. Second semester of my senior year, I reached out to my MD at the BB internship and asked if there were any open positions since I graduated in December and it was considered off-cycle recruiting. He replied his group was full but that he knew of some well known PE groups hiring. Gave me their contact info and a very nice recommendation to introduce me. From there a usual 3 tiered interview process. Received a job offer from 2 and from there negotiated heavily with my current employer due to having a life long knowledge in the area (most of my family are engineers / project managers in the oil & gas space so I knew the industry quite well for a newcomer)

Proved my worth in the first year by highlighting a big hurdle in one of their prospect companies overstating their goals and capabilities (underestimating capex required). This helped in the negotiation phase of that deal and we were able to get the company at a low multiple for the time.

As far as options, I trade on intraday or 2-3 day trends. I follow 6-8 stocks very closely rather than equity trading where you have 100+ tickers on your watch list. Learn the patterns of those stocks by first just watching, then it’s a comibnation of industry specific news/ macro news / country specific news which act as catalysts for a trade. Mostly though it’s technical and momentum based on very tight intervals. If you’re looking at 100 day moving averages that doesn’t help but a 2 day MA or stochastic oscillator is pretty beneficial to scalp an opportunity. I typically aim for a 20-25% return for one day trades but I have lucked out a few times where the option contract goes up by 6-700% because of a broad market rally or new research report comes out etc.

Stay away from spamming emails and linkedin profiles as that only makes the person less inclined to help. Start with your alumni who are working in the field you want to be in. If there aren’t any, run a search on some funds or LPs that are in the industry by sending a brief cover letter and targeted resume that specifically outlines what you have accomplished (goal based not tasks) backed up by numbers. Call back and ask for a status update (not right away give it 2 weeks or so).

Another way is to reach out to a group’s high ranking employee (senior associate, MD, CIO etc) and request 15 minutes of their time for a coffee or drink. Most won’t respond back but some will and this will give you a face to face convo where their impression of you will say much more than a resume can. They key is to not act like your sole reason for contacting them is to get you in their company. It’s more about “knowledge arbitrage.” The more free info you can extract the greater chances you have. Get their business card ask at the very end if they or anyone they know are looking for candidates with your skillset. Send them your resume about a week later reminding them of the conversation and why you would be a good fit for their company and culture. Not because you’re amazing at closing multi-billion dollar deals. No one expects you to be one right out of college. They do expect you to have thick skin, logical and innovative way of thinking and know exactly what your confidence in your abilities to get something done.

#25

+1 Wholeheartedly agree. A friend of mine from college moved from NYC from her awesome Goldman job and now works at Anadarko doing M&A. If you think that Anadarko can’t match what Goldman pays, you would be surprised. In the near term though, I do want to move back to my home state of NY, and more specifically NYC. I’m hoping a SA position opens up in the next year or so and will put in a request to be interviewed. I like Houston, don’t get me wrong, I’m just a New Yorker at heart.

Aberdeen, Scotland. Lots of activity in the North Sea currently and in the future. The arctic by greenland is also a future hotspot. It’s a bit closer to the UK than Houston :stuck_out_tongue:

#26

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

#27

Chance of Pass (in %) = 4[(Hours Study)(Concentration Level)]^1/2 + 2(#s of Mocks finished) + 4(#s of times all CFAI EOC finished) - (#s of husband/wife + #s of kid)^2

#28

(original message deleted due to its dorky nature)

#29

how about spending all the time doing useless hours-studied analysis and actually being productive with it… there’s a thought

#30

Itera, how about getting off the L2 board and being productive instead of giving people a hard time for being a bit anxious/obsessive about a tough exam they just spent half a year on. :slight_smile:

#31

Thanks a lot to everyone who found time to reply. But I would like to be closer to the point. First of all, I asked those who made 600+ hours how they did it and fairly not many answers were found. Some ideas has been provided and I would like to address to some of them. 1. Some people questioned the number of hours needed and even claimed that it depends from Candidate’s background. Let me just recall that the number of pages in 60 Level 2 Readings is (correct me if I am wrong) is about 3,000. Asheru suggested that reading speed of 25 pages a hour is sufficient. I tend to disagree. Reading 25 pages per hour means just skimming the text, without any chance to take a note, write down a flashcard, reproduce the example from the book. My own speed, average speed is similar to I-will-pass’s, let’s fairly talk of 12 pages per hour. So let us make some math. It’s 3000 pages / 12 pages per hour and it means 250hours to read all the reading JUST ONE TIME!! Ooook, so let us give some time to review and make EOC and make some additional questions . Let’s be extremely optimistic and decide that all the review, flashcards and questions will bring us to 70% of the time spent for the reading the Readings for the first time. Mr. Itera, do you consider this study time as productive? So we have 250 hours for the first round of readings + 175 hours for review, about 425 hours, fine. And we need some time for mocks, too. The 300hours made an amazing review which totally coincides my own experience: it takes at least 5 mocks to feel confident, so let’s talk of 7 mocks, which is perhaps average number in the forum. 7 mocks * 6 hours each + 7 mocks * 2 hours of review = 56 hours and together with the review it’s about 481. It’s the minimum one needs to make some educated guesses on the exam. My own experience is 600 - 650 hours (i.e. 120 hours additional training) is something very valid, i.e. the third round of review. 2. Some people questioned the importance of CFAI Readings and suggested that some providers could give more conceded and practical material. Well, AnalystForum has it’s own dynamic. The same threads pop up every year. One which comes every year is (just browse the forum) and it’s like “Test Provider XXXXXX (you name it) sucks, I studied and no material from their videos come on the exam etc”. The reason for those threads is very simple: CFA Exam is built on the ‘testing on fringes’. They can take one 3 LOS and make the out of 50 LOS in the CBOK topic and make whole vignette in those 3 LOS only. You know what I mean. So people who studied less then 600 hours might think they are going to the exam. It’s all wrong. They are going to gamble party. They can recall some of material they studied, depends of the hours invested. CFAI tosses the cards and gave them the exam based on some number of LOS. If they have good luck, CFAI gave them the LOS they can recall and implement. If they have bad luck, they are doomed. The more hours they put the less luck they need, but even 500+ hourers could feel strong pain after the exam (depends on their luck). The only people who do not gamble is those who can read the Readings and review them. Just brows the forum and you’ll read these success stories of people who put 600 - 700 hours, sat every single day in the library for 4-5 hours… And I would like to understand if they did it while working full time. Any stories from 600+ full time workers?

#32

didnt get 600 but would have but I had to take a 16 day business trip to a rural location in a developing country- not to conducive to studying.

regular schedule was: 1.5 hours before work, 1 hour at lunch, then 1-3 in the evening depending on if i worked out that day or not. then 6 hours on saturday and 4 on sunday.

then last month i upped it to whenever i could, and took off two full weeks which ended up being about 6.5 hours a day for the last 30 days

its easily possible to fit the time in while working full time, especially if you start 6 months out. dont plan on having too much of a life though

i kept a log of all the hours, which really helped me with time management, and was alos cool to look at the end

#33

Malcolm Gladwell suggests 10,000 hours.

#34

I am working full time as a consultant.

Sure, it is not easy but it is doable. Just like cgrady40 said, don’t plan on having too much of a life.

The very instant I got my results from Level I exams, I registered for Level II and started, so I almost had one year of preparation. The tough part certainly was screezing in some 2 or 2.5 hours in the afternoon/night right after coming back to the hotel from a day at the client. But you can get used to it: My colleagues were watching crap on TV to relax, I did some pages in CFAI texts. On the weekends, I tried to prepare and read for roughly 10 hours.

Elan were of a great help (yeah, that’s sarcasm!), as they shipped their Notes only after I had almost finished working my way through CFAI books. So I crossed them off my list without having looked at them much.

Then 2014 my company ran into trouble and I decided to look for a new job. That’s when my schedule went off plan. But in the end, I got a job offer, quit my job and “had” to clear my desk immediately with one month to the next job. Just guess what I did that month.

I had negotiated a two weeks leave prior to the exam at the new company. These two weeks were like crazy, 7:30 am to 11 pm (less roughly two hours for breaks) doing Mocks, tests and repeating the questions from the books.

In the end, I did them all: CFAI texts and questions, Elans practice tests (the ones that were available), Elan Mocks, Schweser Mocks, CFAI mocks.

Even if I had not quit my job and gained one month filled with CFA I had reached the 600 hours.

The “trick” is to start early and work steadily. Oh, and tell your family and friends that you will be away on some distant island for a year.

#35

Thanks, cgrady40 and 50centperDollar for your input. Your experience also coincides with mine. I mean, guys, you clocked the ‘gross time’, which I mean 'sat down and read from XX:XX to YY:YY". You did not stop the timer for every distraction, otherwise it is almost impossible to clock one hour at launch (during that time you have to go out, take your food, sit down, eat and try to concentrate on the reading in the rest of the time. It could be 25 minutes at the best). You probably do not have kids for now. And you was able to take a long leave before the exam and still keep your job. OK. At least I know that 2-3 hours after work is what other people do also, I am not a low-motivated lazy-bone in comparison to you. My own path was as follows: I do have kids so I could study 4 am - 6 am only. I log only net time, for every distraction (had a break to made a cup of tea, checked the e-mail etc) I used to stop the clock. I also checked the time when I studied at desk only, all those “review flashcard in the bus” did not count. My own coefficient of net time / gross time is about 70%, i.e. some time I need to get into the material, I cannot read an hour without having a break etc. So I know at least I could not squiz from myself more than I did. You guys at least did not tell me “oh, 5 hours after 9-hour day is totally OK, every day”. Thanks.

#36

I dont think you can pass this exam with 300 hours. I did 20 days, 15 hours a day and it didnt work. I have a chance to pass but this stuff of passing in 300 hours is not true. The acturial exams I wrote were about 700 hours and that was iffy.

If you consider the practice exams alone and did 5-6 exams — thats 36 hours right there. Then proofreading all the mistakes you made on the exam — already up to 60 hours. Now you have 240 hours of reading 6 books. So 40 hours a book and dooing the EOC questions, Blue box questions and retaining. Good luck.

Obviously some peope can do it who have a background. NOt for me. No backgroud in accounting, derviatives, AA, corporate finance, equity. Where I made ground was Economics, derviatives adn quant. Although i had to background in derivatives, it was all math so pretty easy for…

#37

I asked CFAI what is their own assessment of the time need for the exam preparation and they ignored my question so far.

Here http://www.cfainstitute.org/Survey/candidate_survey_2013.pdf on page 2 they claim that Candidates told them that it took 315 hours for Level II. One small problem - they did not tell how it takes to pass, they gave us all the Candidates together and I question if they took a simple average, i.e. I report 700 hours, you do not remember and report 0, on average it’s 350 for us both…

and one more quat:

"

The CFA Institute business model continues to be primarily dependent on CFA Program exam fees and related revenue, which constitute more than 80% of total operating revenue (excluding investment income). This revenue is susceptible to fluctuations in the number of CFA Program candidates and, therefore, represents a sizable risk to the organization. New Level I candidate demand tends to be the most elastic in response to industry conditions, whereas candidates who have passed the Level I exam, and thus have more effort and resources invested in the program, tend to exhibit less demand elasticity as they move through the remainder of the program.

"

http://annualreport.cfainstitute.org/downloads/CFA_2013_Annual_Report.pdf

#38

Just reading CFAI’s 3,000 pages and doing EOC’s is about 300 hours, and is NOT enough to pass. EOC’s have to be redone and reviewed, another 100 hours, then mocks and final review, another 100 hours, so about 500 hours minimum to pass, more like 600-700 hours for the average person.

#39

So true. I do not understand how they can continue to promote the 300 hours myth. The last weeks prior to the exam, during crunching phase, I sunk roughly 120 - 150 hours into preparations with mock and review. Only after that I really felt prepared … in the special way you feel prepared for CFA exams.

According to CFAI that would have left me with ~ 150 hours to read through all the books and do the EOCs?

That is just not doable.

#40

300 hours is just a rough estimate … The assumption behind 300hours is that you have solid finance background and study consistently and with full concentration in those 300 hours …

2 hours studied after work is not equal to 2 hours studied during a weekend with a fresh body and mind …In days near to the exam , my adrenaline increases which in turn dramatically increases my efficiency to learn more. Which means 2 hours on weekend way before exam is not equal to 2 hours study during days closer to the exam.

IMO 400 shall be considered for confident preparation … rest depends upon your luck and performance on that big day.