I am just curious to know what the average annual salary would be for a CFA charter-holder? I am on my way of pursuing it. I will write the level 1 exam this June. I graduated from University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and am currently working as an accounting and administrative assiatant at a small company. My salary is quite basic. Therefore I want to know the potential of my possible future earnings if I pass all three levels and become a CFA one day?
I live in Canada btw.
I think median would be a more insightful number to weed out the outliers.
There are plenty of (somewhat dated) surveys on this (google it), including from CFAI that should address the question. I would also put out the typical “kill your dream” line by saying the charter with a bunch of years as an admin assistant is not going to mean much for your income or ability to land your dream job, its the combo of the charter and investment experience that will lead you to the salary you want.
If I were you, I would be looking to get a job in an investment related role while I worked thru the program.
This so true I had to quote it.
The CFA is not meant to, nor will it, automatically land you in the corner office. Hard work and good experience do that. The CFA is a bonus, and will make your cap higher–but only after years of hard work and good experience.
I plan to find a job more related to finance, something like financial analyst, after taking (and hopefully passing) level 1. It was difficult to find jobs upon graduation with a Bachelor degree only. In university, I was dumb enough not to look for summer internships. I had good grade in finance and stats courses (I was finance major). Yet I am not an expert in MS excel and never really used Bloomberg. Upon graduation, I applied jobs like junior financial analyst, equity researcher, etc, no success. At my current post, I supervise accounts payable, and am in charge of invoicing, and some small projects. I hope that after this June, with 1.5 years of work experience and the passing of level 1, I could find a better professional job. And then I will work through the CFA at the same time.
Unless you have a daddy that got a nice position at a PE firm, and you went to a top 2 school (top 1 for iteracom), this is probably normal.
Get some experience. Learn as much as you can. Decide what you want to do, then go back and get your MBA from a top 2 school.