I am a 25 years old french student and i want to find a finance internship in London starting january 2015. Ultimately, i wish to work as an asset manager.
I stopped my studies for 3 years to be a professionnal poker player, which explain my age. Today i study in a good french business school.
I pass the CFA 1 exam last year and i am confident that i will pass the CFA 2 this year.
My problem is that i never did any internship before and i am 3 years late in my studies. Therefore i am not very confident about my ability to find an internship. I am looking for ways to boost my resume.
Because i do very well on tests, i wonder if passing the CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English) and getting a very high score (+750) on the GMAT could help me find an internship. (or passing any other exam)
Do you have any advices to help me achieve my goal?
how much is worth a 750+ gmat score compare to “having” the CFA 2?
It seems to me that a 750+ gmat score is much more a proof of intelligence than passing the CFA lvl 2 exam, no? I mean anyone can pass the CFA lvl 2 if he spends 1500+ hours studying for it.
Some people will study 200 hours and get 90%+ on the exam. Others will spend 1500+ hours and barely get it. But they get the same diploma.
So i see the CFA lvl 2 as a proof of knowledge more than intelligence. In that case CFA lvl 2 + high GMAT score should be much better than CFA lvl 2 alone.
Or for instance who would you choose, all else being equal, between a “CFA 1” + 780 gmat score and “CFA 2” alone?
or “CFA 2” + 780 gmat score and “CFA 3” alone?
Also i have no intention of doing a MBA. I just want to take the exam to help me get a good first internship. I already spend some time studying for a similar french exam to get into my business school. It was fun, these tests are like games. So i really don’t mind spending many hours studying (and paying) for the GMAT if it can make a difference.
Waste of time to study for/write the GMAT if you’re not considering an MBA, it wouldn’t add enough weight to an employment application to make it nearly worthwhile. And there’s no guarantee you can get a 750 on top of that, in which case your time would be doubly wasted.
This makes me wish I had studied for my GMAT. I didnt look at the first practice question or anything. Just walking in straight up and took it. Pretty dumb of me
So if you are a recruiter for internship, you would choose the “CFA 2” vs “CFA 1” + gmat 750+ without hesitation? That seems illogical to me.
If the 2 profils are even a little equivalent, and i am going to study 300h+ on the CFA 2, It makes sense to spend 100h on the GMAT. Also i would have much more fun studying for the gmat.
I took a similar french test than the gmat (tage mage) for my business school and i got 99th+ scores. So i believe 720+ should be possible, maybe 750+.
For me this is a choice between spending my summer partying and relaxing VS spending my summer partying and studying GMAT :). So would you really call that a waste of time?
I mean what can i do instead to get a better internship? I plan to prepare for the interviews but besides that?
Yes, I would choose CFA2 vs CFA1 + 750 gmat. If you have nothing better to do, like strive for a perfect GPA at university, then go for it.
100h seems unlikely to be enough to score a 700 on the GMAT. It’s good that you’re confident but make sure you’re being rational and not getting ahead of yourself. Not being english first language puts you at an immediate disadvantage, so getting 99th percentile on a french exam isn’t going to directly correlate to a good mark on the GMAT. Based on your posts it looks like you have a fair bit to learn about the structure/grammar use of the english language.
How does the GPA has an impact? You don’t put it on your resume, do you?
I plan to study for the CPE (certificate of proficiency in english) from july to december 2014. During the same period i will also study for the CFA 3 (hopefully) and look for an internship. Then i need to do 1 year of internship starting january 2015.
Thanks to my preparation for the CPE and my time in London i hope to become completly fluent in English. I am already not too bad (toeic: 990).
Because this will be my first internship i want to do everything i can to get a good one. Considering that i do very well at “aptitude” tests with multiple choice questions, I thought it was a good idea for me to take the GMAT. (On the other hand i am very average at dissertation type exams)
What i really need to know is the impact the GMAT can have depending on my score.
If a 700 means: “ok this guy is smart, but nothing special”
but a 780 means: “wow, this guy is something different. He has no professional experience and average academics, but a huge potential. If he does a good interview, I am going to hire him, form him, and make a big profit of an undervalued asset :)”
If this is the case then i will prepare the GMAT like a crazy man. I don’t mind spending hundreds of hours practicing. Like i said, i enjoy these types of questions, they are like games.
putting gpa on your resume is more accepted than putting your GMAT score (unless an MBA ia job requirement and you will be taking your MBA while working the job in question).
Why don’t you try with the london ofice of a french bank like SocGen? I doubt they will care much for your English ability, doesn’t seem like it anyway from the SocGen bankers i’ve met.
You trying to be clever with your anglo-saxons comment?
Look, in the UK, we don’t want to see your GMAT score on your resume, it is too flashy, keep that to yourself and bring it out when trying to get your employer to fund your MBA. CFA 2 is fine but you need to network. Find somebody you can connect with who works for SocGen/Lyxor, BNP Paribas, AXA IM, whatever, and start sucking up.
780 is really impressive, but breaking 700 is a big thing too. last time i saw almost half the people at M7 schools scored below that. overall if you don’t want to get a MBA (which you really never know) then it is probably not worth it.
I find it funny that people think they can just go out and get a 780 GMAT no problem. There aren’t many with the capability to obtain that even with infinite study.
I don’t think it’s likely that i could get a 780 even with hundreds of hours of study time. But if someone tell me such a score is going to open many doors, then i would have the motivation to study hundreds of hours. I would love if that was the case, because aptitude test with multiple choice questions is the one thing that i am excellent at.
