Do you think there are a lot of people that take the FRM exams without doing the CFA first? (For example, folks that actually work in the Risk Management industry?) It seems to me that most of the people I know that are taking the FRM are doing so because they’ve completed (or almost-completed) the CFA, and are now looking for another challenge. I think that anybody that hasn’t done the CFA curriculum would have a very uphill battle with the FRM. They would be competing with tons and tons of candidates who have already done the CFA curriculum, and who thus have significant previous exposure to probability distributions, hypothesis testing, regression, derivatives, options, forwards and futures, foreign exchange, bond pricing, etc etc…
I work for a large asset manager in Boston and see quite a few executives who manage teams (i.e. trading, investment, compliance) taking the FRM. One of the reasons is that they are part of the ERM committee. Most of these executives are not CFA charterholders. It is interesting to me that on our risk management team out of 25 folks only 3 have the FRM. As is the standard everywhere else, they all have advanced degrees in Mathematics, engineering, and statistics. For both the CFA and FRM, the difficulty depends on your education background and line of work. In addition, discipline is key. These exams are not extremely difficult, but they take commitment which is difficult for folks in the industry working 70 hours a week, traveling on business, and with families. That’s why I recommend to the young guys who want to be in the financial industry to do these designations early on after college. These designations will get you the interview or bridge the passage from back office to front office in some places, but you need more than just a piece of paper to get the jobs (e.g. interpersonal skills, communications). Are you taking the exam in November or just trying to assess whether it is worth pursuing it at some point?
I passed level 1 FRM back in Nov of 2009 without ever writing CFA or even taking Finance in University. It’s possible, but yeah Id advise against it. I work within Risk Management but more towards the operation/legal side of things at the moment.
I attempted FRM full in nov 2009 and passed that exam without sitting for CFA. There are few things that matter for success in FRM Educational background time available for preparation exam practice most importantly analytical skills someone can pass FRM without sitting for CFA or similar exam. If you get 70% correct answer in sample exam then there are good chances. Timing is also an important consideration
Logging in AF after a long time , I just bumped upon this thread Last year around this time I was trying hard to balance my 65+ hrs work week and FRM full exam prep . I am en equity analyst , didnt had any CFA level when I took FRM exam , but then later cleared CFA L1 and couple of papers in PRM exam few of the important things that helped me to pass FRM full are Discussions on AF and bionic turtle - being very active around these forums helped me to get the perspective Lay hands on as many readings as possible on risk management (BIS website , http://www.kamakuraco.com/ ) Tried to study in whatever free time I got I think this exam is aceable provided one reads diligently the core readings and Philip Jorion Handbook and try to solve problems from Hull , Gujarati . These problems gives a solid intuitive understanding of the subject matter especially the Market Risk (Greeks , understanding Black scholes is key here )