Hi guys. I have a question for people that are or were involved in the membership application process. I passed L3 in 2009 and now I have almost 3.5 years of experience that I will try to get approved. My question is regarding the sponsors. My understanding is that 1. one can be your supervisor without him having to be a member of local CFA society(and neither a charterholder) 2. one needs to be a regular member of the local CFA society. Since I don’t know any CFA charterholders I am trying to understand if there needs to be any relationship between the regular member and you so he can be your sponsor. When I find somebody that is a CFA charterholder and ask him to be my sponsor - what am I really asking - ie does anybody know what that online form consists of? Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks
florinpop Wrote: > My understanding is that > 1. one can be your supervisor without him having > to be a member of local CFA society(and neither a > charterholder) This is correct. > 2. one needs to be a regular member of the local > CFA society. > Since I don’t know any CFA charterholders I am > trying to understand if there needs to be any > relationship between the regular member and you so > he can be your sponsor. When I find somebody that > is a CFA charterholder and ask him to be my > sponsor - what am I really asking - ie does > anybody know what that online form consists of? > Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks Your local CFA society can help with this. They are likely to ask: * what university you attended, to try and find a charterholder on their registry that attended the same institution as you * employment history to find charterholders that have worked at the same company as you Online form: * consists of 3/4 questions on whether, to the sponsor’s mind, your role contributes to the investment decision making process. i.e. ‘is 50% of the candidate’s time spent contributing directly to the investment decision making process?’ Y/N Hope this helps. K
Kakane, Thanks for your help. I went to university back in the old country (eastern Europe) and I’ve been working for the last 3.5 years at a small wealth management company, that has no CFAs. I’d like to apply for affiliate membership to see if I can get my work approved and then in about half a year upgrade to regular if everything is good. I was thinking I might want to participate to the local society(toronto) events until I will get regular membership. I just need to get a CFA member sponsor so I wanted to know what am I really asking them to do for me. Thanks again for the info
what you are asking of a stranger is a small favor. This can be done in less than 5 minutes, particularly if you provide them a summary of your job duties and how they are relevant to the requirements. No charterholder should object to a small investment of their time to help another. I also asked a total stranger to sponsor me, someone I found on linkedin that worked for my company…
thanks DoubleDip - that is exactly what I wanted to know. The thing is that from what I have read on the CFAI website I couldn’t tell if any relationship with the member was required (i.e - work for same company or somebody that knows you personally). Hopefully the guys we are asking don’t forget they probably were in the same shoes a while ago
would anybody be able to guide me to a part of the cfa website where it says that there doesn’t need to be a relationship between the sponsor and the applicant? I found a few people that would be willing to put in the time to complete the form but are scared since they believe that you must know the applicant and they don’t want to lose the charter because they would be lying. It’s hard to ask people you don’t really know and haven’t done this before because the charter is important for everybody. I’d appreciate any input, please. Thank you
http://www.cfainstitute.org/about/membership/process/Pages/membership_sponsors.aspx “If the supervisor requirement cannot be met because you are the principal of the firm, a student, retired, or self-employed, or if providing a supervisor sponsor places you in a difficult professional position, then an additional sponsorship by a regular CFA Institute member is required. A number of CFA Institute societies are willing to assist applicants in remote areas with locating society members to sponsor them. View further information on the remote sponsorship program.” As one who was sponsored by two complete strangers (found by officers from my local chapter), and who also has sponsored others who sought sponsors from my local CFA chapter, I can attest that it is completely legit. Otherwise, my local chapter would never have helped me find sponsors nor asked me to help sponsor. The questions the sponsors need to fill out do not ask whether they know the candidates personally. However, they ask about your knowledge of the candidate’s professional experience to help the CFAI evaluate. You need to answer 3 questions: - whether it meets requirement of experience guideline. - more than 50% of time. - description of role in investment decision process. What you must do is to give the sponsors your detailed resume and convince your sponsor/help him answer those three questions to his satisfaction. If he sees that he can honestly answer those three questions about you based on your input to sponsor you, I cannot see why the CFAI has a problem with this. You might need to convince your chapter/CFAI why you cannot use your supervisor as one of the sponsor.
elcfa - thanks for the reply my supervisor can be my sponsor - he is not a cfa member, but my knowledge is that he doesn’t have to be. problem is finding the second sponsor - I work at a small co and nobody there has the CFA charter and I don’t personally know any CFA charterholders. So I went asking for friends that know any CFA regular members at my local society. Some charterholders that I found would sponsor me but they are afraid as they feel they are doing something ‘ilegal’ because they don’t know me and they think they are supposed to. So I was looking for a proof that I can show them.I think the best might be shooting an email to CFA member services asking them to confirm. thanks again