I just saw the status on my application (upgrade from affiliate to regular member) and was absolutely shocked to see that my work experience has been rejected partially (30 months rejected). I have been working with a large Asset Manager/Mutual Fund with over $ 14 billion of Assets under Management for the last 5 years. In my first role (30 months) I have been directly advising High Networth Individuals and Institutional clients on their equity and fixed income portfolio investments which would involve detailed client profiling and asset allocation based on their goals and future requirements. As a part of my role I was required to do detailed quantitative/qualitative analysis of all the mutual funds in the industry on a regular basis to focus on select funds with consistent risk adjusted returns. What I studied in CFA Level III (IPS and Asset Allocation) directly relate to my day to day work and forms a part of my core job. I have written to CFAI and has been told that a representative will get in touch with me in the near future. Pls advise if you are also in a similar profile and whether CFAI has cleared / rejected your work ex. Also should I escalate the matter to higher levels at CFAI incase if I get a negative reply from them as I feel this is a very genuine case. This whole issue is delaying my Charter as I have already paid the CFAI and Local Society Membership fees. Pls help.
financial advisor and financial analyst is 2 different type of job.
Everybody can use whatever title they want to, however, what matters is the job contents.
What did you write on the online form? It could be as simple as trying a better/more detailed description when you apply for an upgrade. Why did they reject your experience? Many of us had experience rejected for the description being too brief on first submission. What you wrote above sounds like it it surely qualifies to me, though I have doubts that you are capable of “detailed quantitative/qualitative analysis of all the mutual funds in the industry on a regular basis.” How can you monitor ALL of the funds out there? 
any luck with the work submission? I just checked my application status and also was surprised to see some of my work experience rejected… reasoning “job does not qualify”. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I had a similar experience with the “upgrade” process. Years of early-career experience at mutual funds in advisory/investment guidance/asset allocation-type roles were rejected. I also felt like it applied pretty closely to much of the Level 3 material. Who knows what they are looking for anyway? In any case, I have 45 months approved from my more recent work including my current position, and will be at the magic 48 by the end of February 2010. I still have to pass Level 3 anyway, so I’m not going to bother making a stink about it.
The easiest way to get your work experience approved is to try and tie it in directly with LOS statements from the CFA curriculum. When I described my 3 jobs, I used 3-4 bullet points for each job. Each bullet point had wording directly from the LOS statements. The trick was to find LOS statements that could be used to describe my role. Your job title does not mean much. It could be Executive Assistant for all they care, but if you were actually providing investment suggestions or contributing most of your time to the investment process, then your experience will get approved.
Usually it is just that you did not describe your job duties in sufficient detail in your application. They will likely get you to expand on it.
Hi Guhoya11, Sorry for the delayed reply…I am happy to inform the forum that after much persistence and regular correspondence with CFAI, I finally got the Charter. I guess the trick was to stand behind your efforts and try and explain them the relevance of your job to the CFAI course / material. They finally got convinced (or maybe they would have thought that if we award him the charter,he will stop sending detailed mails). I am happy that my efforts have paid off. I would suggest you to do the same if you strongly believe that your work ex is very much related to the investment profession. Hope this helps and all the best!!!