fellas. i’ve been trolling on the cfa/frm/caia AF forums and thought i’d drop a line here.
i’m sure it’s been mentioned multiple times by cheerful prospects thinking some professional designation would help them move from the back/middle office to the front office. anyone successfully make the move?
my take is.
it’s mostly impossible. (i’d rather hire a fresh ug)
if possible, the professional designations didn’t make it happen.
i want to tell these folks to wake the f up but don’t want to shatter their dreams either. often times they want to move because of the shimmering glory they paint the FO with. hoping to justify being an asshole.
Passing CFA or other exams will not matter much by itself. However, if you are truly the best BO/MO person with the quality to make it to FO, you have a shot. I have seen this happen many times. The reality, however, is that most BO/MO people are far behind their FO counterparts in talent and/or knowledge. Hence, most are unsuitable for a move to FO. It is not the system that conspires against them. The way to make it to BO/MO to FO is to perform an objective self evaluation, truly address the weaknesses that are holding you back internally, and demonstrate that you have overcome these weaknesses through superior work product.
i still find it funny that if I posted what OP did word for word, there would be angry hate posts from CvM. quite interesting how different the tone is when someone else says it. AND he still finds some way to loop me in.
Why you gotta come on here and be so antagonistic to all the lesser folk? Just 'cuz they didn’t graduate from H/S/W/UTSA doesn’t mean they’re not human too.
my 2 cents is that a lot of people will tell you that it’s impossible to move from bo/mo to front office because that’s what they’ve always been told and they think they’re in some elite club and they don’t want inferiors getting in.
it happens all the time though. It all depends on the georgraphy and the specific company.
what should be challenged is the view point that CFA is a golden ticket into the front office when it’s really only a small part of making the move.
i’m kind of mixed on this. true, they might think they’re the elite, but fo and bo/mo folks have different mindsets too.
exactly. this frustrates me. a huge portion (at least 30% imo) of the lev 1 candidates start the cfa program thinking it’s the golden ticket to the front ofc. so you tell them the hard truth : a) the cfa program won’t do this and b) the time and money they have to invest may not be worth their goals, they talk about douchebags/elitismsuperiority. then you become the elite douchebag with a superiority complex. truth is though, the real BSDs in the FO (who most of the time didn’t go through the CFA program) are bigger heartless assholes.
basically they ask for advice to achieve a specific goal and martyr you for being selifsh assholes. ironically the goal they want to achieve is to work among bigger assholes. i really hope that the little shits who complain aren’t in the program to join the real BSD assholes.
your view of the cfa program ‘matures’ as you proceed on to the next level. it’s no longer a golden ticket to get to the promised land, but rather, possibly a springboard in your career.
The progression for candidates effectively looks like this:
Pre-CFA Level 1 - “I’m gonna pursue the CFA charter, and it will allow me to finally break into ______ (IB, AM, ER, PE) by setting me apart, and showing my dedication and abilities. the gold standard of finance man!”
Passed L1 - “Still psyched! That wasn’t too bad, feel good, learned a lot. Time to test the waters and apply everywhere”
Passed L2 - “I guess too many people have passed L1, so it didn’t get me anywhere. But L2 was so much more challenging, I’m sure it’ll get me somewhere now”
Passed L3 - “Got a few nods and some recognition, but it seems IB and PE shops literally don’t care about the CFA charter… and ER jobs all prefer people with experience or have the 4 series licenses which I don’t have… and buyside is even tougher to get into… and now I’m 3 years older with 3 more years of experience working in _______ (back office, unrelated finance role, etc), and that seems to be capping my switch opps.”
Awarded CFA charter (assuming work exp. had passed) - “Yea CFA is nice bec you learn stuff. Benefits are really best for people already working in AM or ER and moving up, it’s not designed as a break in tool, tons of people have already passed the exams, experience is everything. I probably should have done other things like heavy networking instead in combination with the tests, or simlpy went to a top MBA program.”