Hey Guys,
Do you put the 3 letters after your name on your resume?
I mean John Smith, CFA. Or just John Smith and you have under education the completed CFA program.
I know that I can put it on my business card or business related signature and LinkedIn but I’m unsure about my resume.
Sounds like bragging on the CV, never a good idea. This is just a line on your CV, nothing more.
Yes, I agree. Earlier I didn’t even want to apply for the charter, telling myself this is just a finance course.
On the other hand, now, looking for a new job I wanted to have something distinctive on my CV to separate me from the other several hundred candidates. I’m not sure recruiters read the CV to the bottom where education comes. They probably give up at 1/3 of the page.
So you don’t even put the letters after your name on LinkedIn and on your business card?
Nope, I have a phd, MBA, FRM and actuarial degree. I don’t use any of these after my name.
That’s impressive. I’m in a different playground.
Yes I put it after my name. Did we really study all four years to not? Everyone’s different. I’m 27, and lack any long term successful experience. So, any way I can stand out, I want to.
Not easier at 45. In my country every employer wants to hire 28-30.
Especially I’m trying to change from a shrinking industry (banking).
I am also 40+, so putting a credential after my name won’t help me much any more. At that age you need to have a nice CV and a experience, not letters after your name (in Europe this is bragging and not appreciated). I once read a phrase: the CFA is the cherry on the cake, but first you need the cake. Like any credential or education, the sign behind your name doesn’t say a lot. It is what you do with the knowledge you gained.
I have always heard it is rather a door opener.
I work for the company with the largest amount of assets under management worldwide. When you talk with the people in charge for the asset management , they say a CFA has not a lot of added value to get a job at the company. It shows you are able and prepared to work hard. The real knowledge you get by doing the job.
Well in my country there are no more than couple of hundred charterholders, and anyways the financial industry, capital markets are very underdeveloped, and very much “local”.
With 19 years of corporate banking experience my CV is thrown out of the window for any non-banking position. Banking, female, old, has kids…
But I completed the program to try and move away from this industry, or at least from the corporate banking client management role (which holds nothing new and challenging any longer).
So I want my CV to show something different than “a burned out banker again”. But my work experience will show nothing of the kind.
Sure by the local society membership I plan to participate their events and network to see if there’s any niche for me.
I’ve seen resumes with the letters after the candidate’s name for positions I was hiring for. I never took it as a negative or as bragging. After all, isn’t the whole point to sell yourself? Something to distinguish you from the rest of the stack so that you can get an interview and then sell them on the fact that you have the knowledge and abilities they are looking for? Maybe it’s a cultural thing elsewhere, but I haven’t heard it as a negative in the US.
Agree with ^^. Here is another random caveat, if you are in sales/marketing then put the CFA on your name. If you are analyst, then don’t bother. Technically speaking, the way they do it now, they use computer programs to screen resumes for certain words…so it technically doesn’t matter where on your CV you put it.