Hello, I immigrated to Canada (Quebec) as mechanical engineer, but I decided to make a career change due to difficulties of finding a job as a foreign engineer (although I have equivalence). I passed required exams and just started to work as a financial advisor. I sell personal insurances (life ins., disability ins., credit ins. etc…), pension plans and investments funds. However, I don’t like to do it for 2 reasons: 1. Apart from passing exams, required formation for this job is college degree (for US readers, I mean post high school but pre-university degree). I want to have job which fits with my educational background. 2. This job requires to visit clients everyday and endure their caprices. I want to be considered as respected professional instead of a salesman. So, I registered to CFA exams, and I will take CFA 1 this december. I have some questions, though. 1. Can I find an investment job after completed CFA 2 in june 2010? What kind of job it would be? 2. Can I pursue an academic career after CFA? Is it considered as master’s degree? So, can I do a Ph.D in finance? 3. In brief, I have been in the financial industry for 3 months and I would appreciate any advise. Thanks in advance
I am taking L3 this next June and can’t answer (yet) if CFA is ever going to help me with the transitioning, let alone the though of getting a dream role in a dream company. Sad but true.
Hi karakartal, As a professional engineer myself, I can attest to the difficulty you are going to have in switching from engineering to finance. First of all, Quebec’s financial scene is relatively small with only a handful of profesionnals comparatively to Toronto or other cities in the State. Therefore you are probably going to have to aggressively network you way into a finance job. Also, you need to keep in mind that for an obscure reason, an engineering degree is often not considered sufficient to work in finance, as opposed to the States or Europe where an engineering background is oftentimes considered a plus by recruiters who look for finance professionals. For this reason, a CFA will provide marginal value to your career at best. Also keep in mind that Canada as among the largest CFA per capita base which makes the market a whole lot more competitive when it comes to jobhunting. As for the academic value of the CFA, after L2, most universities will consider that you have the equivalent of a bachelors in finance / econ and probably allow you (if you can argue sufficiently or demonstrate it) to register for a Master’s program but not a Phd. Remember that Quebec’s education system is of a relatively high quality and that as opposed to certain places where the CFA is considered equivalent to a Master’s, it is not the case in Quebec. Depending on your age / and career state, I’d consider the following options: - Do the CFA while trying to find a better job in finance, but if after a certain period you don’t manage to secure a new position, switch back to engineering where you could get experience and later enter a mixed field such as venture cap. - Keep networking at you bank / insurance company. Oftentimes when you commit to the CFA they’ll let you apply for roles such as commercial banking which involve more analysis and are a bit less akin to sales (do keep in mind that market development is important however). On a side note, you might wanna checkout McGill’s University career fair. Pre 2008 crisis, a lot of the US banks used to attend to recruit Engineers for financial roles (quants stuff mostly). I tried my best to answer honnestly to your question. I hope it helps. I also hope you manage to find a job you enjoy wether it’s in Finance or in technology. Keep in mind however that a lot of jobs in Finance are less glamorous than what the people claim it is, and that technology, while often snobbed remains a field where the challenges are quite rewarding intellectualy. Good luck on your CFA. J.