His only aim is to keep shouting i am an i banker , i am an i banker 
I agree and share similar views with Gottasay.
I started studying the CFA in September 2012 and I plan to recieve the passed Level 3 results in August 2014, so done in less than 2 years. It’s pretty tough from time to time to sacrifice weekends and spare time, but honestly I in periods sacrificed as much at the University studying applied physics.
More knowledge is fun, I get a kick out of passing something hard, it’s a bonus if it opens up new doors in my career, but it will anyhow be valuable to myself.
Hello,
For me CFA program it’s only hope to get ANY job in the area of finance (even for $10,000 per year) .
To be honest with you in my region is extremely difficult to find job so CFA in resume can give some advantages…
I have just passed first level, I’m also student of Master Studies in Finance and in June 2014 is my expected graduate date.
In next week I will have job interview so my CFA level 2 registration depends solely on its result( at the very moment I don’t have money) so wish me luck! ;)…
Kind regards
The dude is in India, AF points don’t have any value outside US, since rewards are only sent domestic US.
And to answer your question: The CFA program is designed for working professionals already in finance as a supplement to a career. It was never designed to help people break into finance or as a career changer.
The reason he pulled out 80% is if you look at the stats, nearly 30% are students, and a ton of people are thinking the program will launch their career into a high-paying finance job / or are in unrelated finance areas etc.
80% may be a bit high. But I would say at least 50%
Itera - A couple of things - (1) Consider the possibility that people like Righteous lie on their AF profile when it comes to identifying their location. (2) What the program was “designed” to do has little to no bearing on what it actually does in practice. The fact is that you don’t have to write ANY exam to get the CFA designation (look it up if you don’t believe me) The designation can (and has) been bestowed upon professionals who haven’t taken any exams at all. I bet you that people like Warren Buffett or Ray Dalio do technically hold the CFA charter, and they have no need to identify themselves as chartholders. There was a recent NYT piece about an admissions reader at UC Berkley. Applicants everywhere (at least in the US) are trying to distinguish themselves in any way they can from the pack. Having the perfect grades and just being a kid is no longer good enough to get accepted into a great college. And if you have parents that will finance your trip to some poverty-striken region of the world so you can dig a well that is going to work against you too because plenty of other rich parents have already thought of that scheme. If nothing else, the CFA is a good way to start networking with people who do work in finance. Not everyone can be like Michael Lewis and get a finance job just because they happen to have family connections in the business. Quite frankly, I don’t see what’s the point of ragging on people (whether students or professionals) who are in the program, or want to get into the program. Should some people not be in it? Judging from the kinds of characters I’ve seen in exams, I think so. But that’s just my personal judgmental opinion based on knowing practically nothing about the person. And I don’t think I have any right to tell those people they shouldn’t do something - especially when it comes to improving themselves. They’re not trying crack or gambling their life savings away. They’re just studying, for heaven’s sake. It would be one thing if somebody had asked, “Hey, here’s my background, do you guys think I should I be in the program and/or get started?” In that case, sure feel free to tell them that they have no business being in the program. But nobody asked that question. And not for nothing, people who repeatedly feel the need to start threads like this come across like they feel threatened by these “unworthy” people. If you have your shit together as much as you claim, these people who are no threat to your job or your position shouldn’t matter. Funny how they do matter enough to rile some people up.
First, OP (aka. RIghteous hacksaw) was formerly ChickenTikka, he’s been around AF a long time. we know him far better than you just coming here and saying ‘oh he’s lying about his location’. have you been around for years? you have 5 AF points.
Prove to me where the CFA was awarded to someone without any effort and without taking any exams. I have never heard of it happening. I believe you are lying. MBAs are awarded for free.
There are many people like you who think and feel the same way. Something is better than nothing. The CFA program is better than no cfa program. a Lottery ticket is better than no ticket. There are many other ways to try to “break into” finance, then to spend a thousand hours trying to pass 3 exams.
I wouldn’t start a thread like this personally, but a key point is important: experience > passing exams
You can draw parallels to the higher education bubble right now. millions of people getting a college degree, borrowing money to do it, and then getting the degree and finding nothing, instead taking jobs that don’t require one.
It’s not very dissimilar with a ton of people taking CFA exams, spending hundreds of hours, and finding nothing.
Itera - If you’re really a CFA chartholder as you claim, then you should be familiar with the CFA charter. And having read the charter, you should know that passing exams is not a requirement for the CFA designation. The society can choose to grant it to anyone they want and waive the exam requirements. Unless you’ve actually met Righteous, you have no idea who they are. Even if I take you at your word, I have no respect or consideration for people who are rumored to have multiple user names on the same forum - especially with someone whose past comment history shows him/her to be a shit stirrer instead of someone who engages in meaningful conversation and wants to contribute. And may I remind you that AF points are awarded just on the volume of responses a user provides, not on their quality or relevance to any topic. You don’t even have to register for the forum to be able to see discussions. I don’t post often because I have better things to do with my time than to argue with people on the Internet over trivial things. I joined the forum because I’m interested in having meaningful discussions with people about finance topics. I am not here to engage in a dick measuring contest with people who are out to flaunt their accomplishments or to discourage people. The only reason I even added to this thread is to add my voice to the others who questioned its relevance and purpose. Personally, I think these kinds of threads should be deleted by the AF moderators, and I think that with enough back-lash from people calling out a thread to be irrelevant, they might add that a tag for removing thread, like they have on StackExchange.
I’m still waiting. prove it.
This is news to me.
Perhaps they can, but that doesn’t mean that they do.
My view is simple. I am pursuing the charter for my own reasons. They may or may not be “good enough” reasons in someone else 's view.
WGAF. if i need your opinion i will ask for it.
I do not know why others are pursuing the charter unless they tell me. I may not agree with their reasoning but thats about it. Putting up posts like these and “guessing” 80% 50% or whatever in my opinion is uncalled for and unnecessary.
“we know him far better than you just coming here and saying ‘oh he’s lying about his location’. have you been around for years? you have 5 AF points.”
So the no of AF points determines your credibility in the eyes of some. That means raking up points through meaningless posts and shitty comments from djibouti matter more than anything else.
Hardly. I’d like to get a good idea if what type of jobs require or desire a CFA charter holder. I am not an expert in this which is why I’m asking the question. I’m not able to say who should be, who needs to be, and who shouldn’t be in the program.
My job required me to start the program and has paid for it all the way. This is why I did it. As I’ve gone through it, I have noticed that a lot of candidates are in professions that are unrelated to the program and where they do not get employer support for doing it.
I “guessed” that a good number of people are in this program and wasting their time, that doesn’t mean I’m correct about this. That’s why I said guess. Furthermore, a whole bunch of charter holders in the thread where I guessed this agreed with me, which is why I started the thread.
Righteous -
The CFA designation is not a license to practice, like the bar exam is a license to practice law. A lot of companies don’t pay for the CFA because it’s not a license to practice, and the employer doesn’t really stand to benefit from it in a tangible way. And speaking of practicing law, the vast majority of people who went to law school and passed the bar exam aren’t actually working as lawyers at all. Do you also go around questioning why those people bother to do that? Or do you accept - like most sensible people - that people with law degrees have a wide variety of applicable knowledge and skills to many jobs?
Job-specific training is paid for by the employers. For instance, in New York state (and probably a lot of others), you do need to pass some exams to practice investment banking (go on road shows, make markets, etc). As an individual, you can’t register and write those exams on your own. They won’t even sell you the study material so that you can get an idea of the stuff you’re required to know. The law (and the testing company) specifically require that you are associated with an investment bank and the employer has to pay for them. Some companies - like yours - pay for the CFA (likely at the request of the employee) because they have overblown employee training budgets. Most of the time managers can’t divert the funds toward something else, and they look good to their own bossess when they spend money on employee development. A lot of people pay for exams (whether CFA, accounting, actuarial, etc) because they know that they can’t really study and work at the same time. If you’re in a high stressful and demanding job, chances are very good that you’re working 60+ hours a week. Unless you’re working for the government or live in a very small town, all finance-related jobs at big employers require you to put in a lot of hours. There’s no way that you can clock in 60+ hours a week at your job and then come home and really study for 3 or 4 hours a day. No one has the mental energy to do that unless they’re coasting at work and not really doing their job. And to answer your original question, the kind of job that “requires” the CFA is your kind of job. Remember that you’re the one who claims that your job "required’ you to take the CFA and paid for it. So there’s your answer to that. The rest is nothing but concern trolling on your part. FormerTrader, BChad, et al - Again, read the charter, and re-familiarize yourself with how the society got started in the first place. You don’t have to pass any exams to be granted membership. Just about every one of Benjamin Graham’s BFFs is a CFA chartholder and didn’t take the exams. (And as with most things in life, when you get offered something you didn’t ask for, you probably don’t have much use for it). Fabozzi (of the Wiley finance series) is about the only reknowned guy who I can think of right now that even advertises that he’s a chartholder. The society can grant membership to anyone they want to, without having that person write/pass any exams. That does not mean that you can call them up, request membership and expect to be made a member. All that means is that the society retains the right to offer membership to anyone who they want. In the vast majority of cases, people are applying for membership. In other words, the society is not approaching you asking you to be a member, you’re the one who is requesting to join.
I don’t get all the vitriol. I made a hypothesis. I wanted to know what some people thought about it. I didn’t specifically say, “YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.” I said, I’m afraid that many candidates might be. You remind me of a fundamentalist jihadi.
Aww, here I was hoping it was Hitler or Stalin so that your concern trolling would be complete. The tag line of AF is “study together, pass together”. None of your “concern” lends itself to that, which is why I’m advocating that threads like this be deleted for being irrelevant. And while I’m sure some people find your unsolicited concern touching, the vast majority of people reading this really don’t care and are annoyed by threads like this. Instead of worrying whether some candidates are wasting their time in the program, maybe you should worry more about the absence of value in your posts.
I think you are wrong here. Yes, this is “study together, pass together.” But this site does a lot more than just that - check out the water cooler section where a group of candidates have recently discovered that not masturbating gives them superpowers. You are limiting this sites mandate to just test studying specific things. That is not the case here plain and simple. Look around and see it for yourself.
Furthermore, there is at least 1 post per day from someone asking if the “CFA will do XYZ” for their career. It’s a common topic. Today someone asked if it will get them a job abroad to given an example. Usually it is, “will CFA allow me to break into finance even though I’m in ABC?” So these are common questions that I am seeking to address at least partially in this thread.
The ultimate question for many on this site is, “Is the CFA for me?” I wanted to have a thread where we tried at least to accomplish this.
You on have just spewed vitriol and attacked my credentials for no damn reason. I see a complete absence of value in your posts so I guess we have that in common. I call you a “fundamentalist” because it appears that you are the type of person that just gets furious when you challange their beliefs. Your attacks on my character and Itera’s (he’s a lovely helpful guy by the way) demonstrate that you are this type of person.
If debating this question helps at least a few people avoid spending 4 years of their life on a qualification that will not fulfill their hopes and aspirations then I think it’s a conversation worth having. You may see no value. But you are a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists don’t like it when you tell them, “Hey, maybe your relgion is wrong about XYZ.” They just attack you and your character rather than considering if the other side has a point. Ill be a proud CFA charterholder if I pass this week. But I don’t think the CFA is infallible and will accomplish everthing that candidates hope it to. Not even most candidates.
Not a waste of time at all. But if you think the CFA is going to be some yellow brick road, you’ll be very let down. A CFA alone won’t get you a job. But a CFA with the right experience can really do some damage. It’s by far the most respected designation in finance.
As far as prep, go to Amazon and search “CFA summary guide”. They offer really good CFA cliffs notes for like $40.
I think you’re mixing up members and charterholders.
A member joins a local society and pays fees.
A charterholder passes all 3 exams, has 4 years of experience in finance, etc… (and pays fees)
BTW: Unless you’re looking for work (so you want to write “My Name, CFA” on a resume) passing all 3 levels seem fine to me - I’m still looking to motivation for applying to the charter and membership - some people say CFAI gives you a lot of cool resources. I don’t know - CFAI digest is pretty good but it’s cheaper to subscribe than to pay CFAI’s annual fees.
1st – They never find the cure for cancer. Bart Simpson would say that if you want the results you should call the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers (and at a smaller scale, the Van Dammes).
2nd - I don’t get this fascination with med school. Unless the person wants to be a researcher/manager, he is gonna either slowly help one person at a time or barely help at all ( a lot of phisicians aren’t saving lives - they’re popping pimples or making noses look better).
In finance, or whatever really, you can make your path. If you go to the World Bank and manage to somehow induce productive investments in Somalia (for instance), you may be saving thousands of lives in the long run.
If you maximize the Sharpe for the Malaria Foundation, you’ll be saing more people than any physician. You won’t be touching the patients kindly and getting appreciation letters, but that’s OK, because you’re not a selfish arrogant prick who does good just to brag about it.
Or maybe I’ve just been around too many physicians who completely suck at their jobs…