abbreviating your masters? MSF? MS? MS-Fin?

For those of you with a masters in finance - how do you abbreviate it for business cards, etc ? They all seem to be either unrecognizable or too long. I’ve seen some people just leave it off, especially if they have a CFA, but i don’t really get why you wouldn’t want to advertise your masters.

Leave it off personally.

Yes, please leave it off. I cringe when people have MA, MS, MBA or anything like that after their names. Even worse are when people in certain professions will have like 5 or 6 obscure trade designations after their names…

No wonder people looking to get into finance can’t find jobs.

You should only have CFA or Ph.D on your card. CFA because it is a designation relevant to your industry. In this case CFA > MBA.

equity_analyst Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > No wonder people looking to get into finance can’t > find jobs. +1000000000000000000000000000000000

oh jeez, don’t ever put a master’s behind your name, not even top MBA grads put MBA behind their name. I wouldn’t even glance down past your name on a resume if I saw that.

The answer is, it depends: If you are looking to work in finance academia, you should put your degrees behind your name i.e., MST, MSF, MSA, MBA, MA, etc. If you are looking to work in private sector finance, you should only put professional designations behind your name, CPA, CFA, CFP, etc… I don’t work in government; so I can’t make suggestions regarding how public sector (CBO, SEC, etc) culture is regarding this kind of thing. Therefore, what area of finance are you working or looking to work in?

I already work in AM, has nothing to do with resumes…this is for business cards, email signatures, etc. Whole reason behind considering it is that a lot of the MBAs I know put it after their name and it always seemed kinda crap that people with an MS skipped it. By the standard of “you put CFA cause it’s relevant,” you would list an MS before you listed an MBA. I don’t necessarily disagree with the standard of “put CFA and nothing else” or “if you have a PHD you’re gonna put it down, so just shut up and put it down” but it irks me to skip the MS when I see MBA around all the time. I’m considering removing it and putting just CFA once I’m elligible.

Face + palm.

Ceredwyn Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I already work in AM, has nothing to do with > resumes…this is for business cards, email > signatures, etc. > > Whole reason behind considering it is that a lot > of the MBAs I know put it after their name and it > always seemed kinda crap that people with an MS > skipped it. By the standard of “you put CFA cause > it’s relevant,” you would list an MS before you > listed an MBA. I don’t necessarily disagree with > the standard of “put CFA and nothing else” or “if > you have a PHD you’re gonna put it down, so just > shut up and put it down” but it irks me to skip > the MS when I see MBA around all the time. > > I’m considering removing it and putting just CFA > once I’m elligible. You’re an idiot.

It seems pretentious to put every title you ever received. Just watch who’s toes you’re stepping on. I think it tells a lot about someone if they’re putting that stuff. Where does it stop? Name, Undergraduate University, GPA, Years as a human, LOOK AT ME!!!

Don’t put it behind your name! Period!

Ok so as an executive recruiter, having your credentialing behind your name is advised. If you have an MBA and CPA, put it behind your name. Just because you have a CPA doesn’t mean you did the extra effort to get the MBA since a requirement of sitting for exams is not to get the graduate degree. The first thing you’re showing on your resume is your name and credentials, so it lets the person reading the resume know WHY they should continue to even look at the rest of the resume. So if you did the work, display it! It’s not pretentious, showing off, or stepping on toes. You earned it, now show it!

In your case it will be CFA → MBA.