congrats Zubbo!, Pass rate is high, but profile is, I would say, more mature. I recall CFA exam days and each time I sat, over 1000 Candidate were present (3 levels combined of course). Sitting for the CAIA, we were 6!..So chances are (I’m assuming of course) if one is sitting for the CAIA, they are most probably already working in industry, have exposure to finance and probably hold other credetials. 
Congratulations, Donezo and Zubbo. I did not pursue CFA after Level 1 (Stopped after we had our first child, may revisit next year if I have time) but I agree, the difficulty in CFA is driven by volume, not necessarily intellectual rigour. I found the CAIA Level 1 course to be quite interesting and did take away some interesting bits about an asset class I have never worked in. As for candidate profiles, we can have our own little profiling right here: I have been in equity research/fund management for ten years now.
Dog
cool idea. 6 years in the business for me…anyone want to share and help create a sample?
I was the only woman before 30 in the test center
To be serious, I’m in finance already 8 years. Previously I worked in M&A and since the beginning of this year I have worked in Private Equity with focus on PPP&Infrastructure projects.
Domelight…don’t be afraid, do CAIA L2 in March and CFA L2 in June…it worked for me. See breakdown below.
CFA L1: June 2012 (study Jan-June) ~200 hrs CAIA L1: Sept 2012 (study mid-July - Sept) ~120 hrs CAIA L2: March 2013 (study Dec-March) ~150 hrs CFA L2: June 2013 (study March-June) ~260 hrs (~18 of these hours in Jan) CFA L3: June 2014 (study Feb-June) ~200 hrs
I have exact hour numbers in my spreadsheets at home but don’t recall at the moment.
Passed! Boston CAIA level II candidate here! Unlike CFA I wasn’t even checking daily for the email, but I was psyched to get the results so soon. I found there to be a stark difference between the perceived difficulty of the test vs how difficult it actually was come test day. I ended up scoring higher and outstanding in most topics and comp in ethics (surprisingly). My Uppermark L2 books are en-route. Good luck to everyone jumping right into level 2 in March.
I’ve been in the business for over ten years now in private wealth management.
Congratulations! Did you use Uppermark for level 1? Do you like it?
I found UpperMark to be top-notch. There was almost nothing that I saw on the test except for an outlier term or two (that was probably covered) that I couldn’t recall. Compared to Kaplan (which I used for CFA) it seemed more comprehensive. If you’re going to dedicate yourself to obtaining a designation I’d much rather go with the more comprehensive provider.
I did think that the test bank was a little light, but then again I’m comparing it to CFA where there was simply a greater volume of content to test on.
On a separate note, I couldn’t agree more with other comments on the difficulty of the exam. I found it to be rather similar to CFA L1 and the contrast between perceived difficulty and actual difficulty was pretty stark. I had a few people tell me that it was a softball, but in my opinion it definitely wasn’t an “easy” exam by any means.
+1 on the last comment however I can only speak for the test bank as I used the original CAIA book. I intend to do the same fo Level II. The test bank is comprehensive and covers all topics; if I recall correctly, there were 1,585 questions in total.