Hi guys, I am basically a Chartered Accountant, at the moment a Shattered Accountant! I need a bailout in the form of your opinions and thoughts: I have around 10+ years experience in the financial services sector- around 6+ years as Accounts/Finance-in-charge of a financial services company and the next 4+ years as a IT Business Analyst with various investment banks. I am slightly confused because I am getting conflicting advice from people on these questions: 1. Whether a CFA charter will add any value to my career at this stage i.e. given the fact that I already have 10+ years experience? 2. I guess I will be getting a charter immediately after clearing Level-3 since I have relevant 6+ years of accounting experience. 3. Once I qualify, do I need to start from scratch or will I get due consideration for my accounting or Business Analysis experience which I admit may not be too relevant from a CFA point of view? 4. Is there any way I can leverage my 10+ years experience (including 4 years in ITl) while getting into a research or a portfolio manager position? 5. If I were to start from scratch, I guess I have to be prepared for a ‘massive’ undercutting as far as comp package is concerned, isn’t it? Mine is currently at 65k+ British pound sterling per annum I want to use CFA as an option to get into research while at the same time I want the employer to give due weightage to my huge experience as well. Is this possible or am I living in a utopian world? Thanks,
Come back to the world. What you are trying to do was possible five years ago, and may not be possible in the next five years. Be glad you have a job, at least.
agree, unfortunately, i think a cfa wont help you much at the moment. tried the same, although i got another background. Maybe in the long-long-long-term it could help you, but maybe at that time your too long in your industry, so that a career-change will anyway not be possible. also, i’m not sure, if your experience qualifies you for the cfa. As far as I know, the focus is Investment DECISION-making. So what was your responsibility? Was it within accounting? So as long as you’re not the CFO, it could get hard to get the charter. But have a look at the cfa-website… Just my 2 cents