My impression until now, is that the CFA just helps you marginally on apps. In certain personal situations, it may helps you much more. I believe the most value is, as stated before, it helps you in your broaden knowledge for your daily work. the real value of this, may be unknown. Nevertheless, I faced an executive director (JPM), who was pretty impressed, that I already passed L II (for analyst position), while another executive director (DB), was totally unimpressed (she did it herself and stated, the CFA is a piece of cake, and she didn’t regard it as ANY advantage, that I have some more knowledge. she said, this is just what you should already have learnd long time ago in university…)
“she said, this is just what you should already have learnd long time ago in university…)” That’s a pretty narrow point of view. Does she know about anything else? Maybe you should quiz her on Treynor-Black from her university days, just to see if she’s up to snuff. 
hehe, well, I was also pretty shocked by that statement… I haven’t done a finance degree, so ever since than, I am wondering, If you learn much more or less in a Master of Finance compared to the CFA. Because if so, there would be no value to finance professional doing the CFA. It would just like an egineer doinf the MBA to learn more about business… I met her at a symposium, not an interview. At that time she just stated, the most important is to make clear, why you want to work in finance even in times of crisis… Hmmm, I think, the crisis anyway should never influence this decision. if a crisis scares you, than you for sure should not even thinking about ever working in an IB. Better become a teacher or something.
I would take her statement as a bunch of posturing and a suggestion that maybe she doesn’t know what she’s talking about (or doesn’t know anything other than what she’s talking about). Most finance undergrads I’ve heard comment on the exam say that CFA Level I is roughly a comprehensive exam of the entire undergraduate curriculum, plus some extra stuff with ethics. Some stuff in Level II might be hinted at in an undergraduate curriculum, but probably not done in depth. Since I didn’t do finance in undergrad, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m not sure how the CFA compares to a MSF, but “long ago in university” suggests that she meant undergrad. And I’m not sure she realizes that the current exams contain stuff that would not have appeared in a university curriculum “long ago.” I’d be interested in hearing from Finance undergrads and MSF types as to whether that impression is accurate or not (or how accurate or not). It’s fine if someone says, “look the CFA isn’t all that special, because lots of job seekers have it,” or maybe “it’s not special, because the stuff we do doesn’t connect very well to the CFA curriculum,” but just to say “you should have know that since you were a baby,” suggests she is either clueless or a buffoon(a).
When doing due diligence I often casually bring up the subject of CFA exams and nobody has yet played down the amount of work that has to be put into passing these exams. You can argue the usefulness to ‘rookies’ without relevant experience - I tend to think it’s minimal - but I still have to meet someone who says it doesn’t make a difference at all. I for one love to see resumes of people who are studying for weekend after weekend in the spring time just when girls tend to wear less and less clothing.
“I for one love to see resumes of people who are studying for weekend after weekend in the spring time just when girls tend to wear less and less clothing.” Well, I guess you hit the spot! As she is a woman, she might not know to true sacrifice of learning for the CFA. Nevertheless, as she was totally downgrading the challange of CFA, I was really wondering, if I’m too stupid that I need to learn 200+ hours for each exam or if 200+ hours of leisure is like nothing to her. As I said before, she also did the CFA, so somehow, she should know what she was talking about
Maybe she did the indian CFA. That would explain a lot… But I still love the spring hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_CFA
Well it’s always easy to say it’s easy AFTER passing the exams. Also, in hindsight Level 1 felt pretty easy to me. However, at the time it cost me hours and hours and hours to get it into my head where right now I can’t even remember why I needed them.
to mcpass and others. given all that you know now, if you were to go into the past and decide whether to take the exam again, would you?
Well, in terms of ROI, I was a bad investment until now. After having passed LII, I’m happy, that I did it. If I knew, at the time I registered, when it will help me and when not, I maybe wouldn’t have registered. Maybe, when I land a nice job in some time, my opinion may change (certainly, without the CFA, I have zero chance of landing a job in an IB). All in all, education, always pay off, it’s just a matter opportunity cost (e.g. GMAT, MBA-app, other degree, work harded/more in your job, leisure time, etc.). Additionally, it’s also a matter of ambition and work/life balance. If your comfortable in your job and don’t see need for change, that’s great. Looking back, beside all the pain and time, it was somehow also much fun to expand my knowledge and understand new things. Maybe the biggest monetary reward is that in a time, I have some wealth, I know a bit better how to manage it and what to expect and what not
Absolutely. If you are in asset management and you want to progress in your career, CFA will help. All I wanted to add to this thread was that I see lots of people trying to get into finance with their CFA. That is - in my view at least - a long shot. It’s meant to be complementary to a career, not what gets a career started.
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Simply put, the CFA charter helped me to land a post-MBA level position in a top bank without doing an MBA. So, I would say yes, CFA program does help
Ditto what Neud said.
> All I wanted to add to this thread was that I see > lots of people trying to get into finance with > their CFA. That is - in my view at least - a long > shot. It’s meant to be complementary to a career, > not what gets a career started. Coming from engineering, I got my first finance job after L1. One case does not make a statistic off-course, but the point is, it’s doable. Completing the CFA has opened many doors for me personally and more importantly it has made me more integral to my company’s business and my opinion now carries more weight around here. It’s hard to convince people that you can make them money by your brain alone (which is most people around here are trying to argue to their potential employers) and completing the CFA gives some credibility to your claim that you’re smarter and work harder than the average guy.
I put it as ‘smarter and/or work harder than the average guy.’