Giving the fact that the job advertisement only considers people who passed all 3 levels attempt, I think the question should be:
from all people who passed the 3 levels, how many of them passed all 3 levels on first attempt?
I think passing level I on first attempt should be feasible for 80% of the people who ever get to the finish line.
For level II and III, this should be around 65% (for people who passed level I on first attempt) and 65% (I give people who passed level I and II on first attempt an equal chance on passing compared to people who failed the level III exam at least once, but they have a higher probability on passing compared to people who failed Level I of II).
So I think that about 1 on 3 of the people who passed CFA exams did a ‘all on first attempt’.
I doubt that anyone whos looking for talent seriously cares. Unless the hiring Manager is One of those douchebags who posts on those #18months2CFA topics or " I only studied for 50 hours each exam and was done 1 1/2 hours early". Who would want to work for such an a.ss anyways?
Your analysis is much more logical that anyone else’s on here. However, I would strongly contest your theory that 80% of people who pass L1 and L2 on the first try also pass L3 on the first try.
The success rate of L3 first-timers vs retakers has been debated endlessly on other threads and the general consensus is that they perform about the same. Therefore, take your 16*.53 which equals 8.5%.
There you have it folks: 8.5% pass all three on the first try.
But, yeah, like someone else said…how the hell is an employer really going to know if someone passed on all three tries? Require you to have kept and produce your result matrices? Remember CFAI will only give exam results for roughly one year after the initial release.
The highest number is ~42% – assumes 100% of new charterholders went 3/3. The lowest number is 0%.
Beyond that, I don’t think actual math is useful (except to keep track of bracketing, or other guesstimates).
Theory 1: You either have what it takes to obtain the charter, or you don’t – work ethic, IQ, whatever. Something like 25-42% go 3/3 because they were born to.
Theory 2: Passing any level is a function of hours, which accumulate when repeating. Most people can pass if they repeat enough times, so most people can obtain the charter with enough attempts. Since the CFA is coveted, a large % of charterholders would be people who kept repeating until they passed. So, perhaps less than 25% would go 3/3.
There’s nothing above that makes me feel 6% went 3/3. I think it’s a lot higher.
You cannot be serious. Weight lifting, a Mark Spitz mustache and the CFA designation should be the killer in any Interview and tinder. I would agree to your view on the 3in3in18 as that doesnt impress the ladies at all.
Ran some numbers (with some assumptions, naturally), and the highest range is 27.1%, while the lowest was 12.6%.
The 8.5% (8.6% on my numbers) rings true for only any given year, meaning the number of level III passing, of which the previous 2 were done once consecutively, relative to the total number of candidates sitting for all three exams. While my first calculation takes all 3/3 on both ends as a % of total current sitting + charter holders. Might look at them again tomorrow.
Obviously the 80% is my own unfounded estimate, used simply to demonstrate the logic. But I do think the true number lies closer to that than to the 53% you mention. I think theres a subtle difference between those you call “L3 first timers” and the people I call “the really smart guys”. These are the people who passed L1 and L2 on first attempt and are now on L3, where as the group you are talking about might have had multiple failures leading to L3, and are thus a different sample. I could definitely be off with the % estimates, but I think the logic is sound.
