CFA® Level 2 while working in IBD?

One of my colleagues did this while working as an analyst in IBD. He was up until 3-5AM most nights studying for the CFA. I also have another colleague who was pursuing the CFA as well, but failed the level 2 because he didn't have enough time to study. It's up to you, but if you decide to pursue, be prepared to devote a lot of time to studying.

It's possible. Sacrifices have to be made, but it's possible.

I personally believe that if you have FT offer in IB, you don't really need CFA or any other certificate. I have read and heard many times people saying that only by having 10 week summer internship a person will learn a lot more than doing 3 levels of CFA (just paraphrasing people's thoughts and opinions). If I were you, I would work for 2-3 years in IB than apply to top 5-10 MBAs, get that degree and come back as an associate and never ever do CFA.

If you think you can put in enough time to studying, then go for it! It's way to early to tell, or even guess, if you want to be a career banker. Others are correct, you don't NEED a CFA if you stay in banking. It's not very common and because of that it's not really valued as much in IB.

There are no guarantees in life, and finance moves so fast that one day you could be a VP making it rain, then the economy tanks and even a star like you needs to find something else to do.

If one well dries up, the animals need to find a new one.

Of course, if you want to move into corporate finance, securities research/analysis, or even just to broaden your knowledge and sharpen your skills, then go for it! I am taking Level 2 this June. While the amount of time I'll spend studying in the next 4 months is daunting, but the material is interesting and my director paid for it so I figured why not.

Good luck if you decide to do it!

i'm planning on doing my CFA and CPA simultaneously while being a banker - so suck it the fuck up

I've seen it done. a close friend of mine passed L1 & L2 while working full time at a BB and after passing L2 successfully transitioned to a middle market PE shop, making more money and with better quality of life (but not less hours). His firm had classes that helped all of the analysts out, and in addition to that, he purchased Schweser (the level where you get the books, qbank, and weekly classes via webinar). If it were me I'd get a feel for the lifestyle to see where you can fit studying in before going all in, you don't want to fail for the exam AND have poor performance at work. also go to analystforum.com for suggestions, they probably have some threads on this.

CFA material is not hard. It's all about having enough time to read and memorise the CFA crap.

If you're entering a new group, wait and see how time-intense their work is before going for level 2. Bear in mind that your learning curve in a new group will be steep at first, so you may have a tough first year, but year 2 could be a lot easier.

Seeing as you need to finish 2 more exams (which is a minimum of 2 years) all while working 90+ hours a week it'll be easy to burn out. You're only going to have so few hours a week to enjoy life that you should strongly consider if it's worth it. I think people above made a really good point. Try out the job first and after you get acclimated then make a decision if you have enough time/want to do it. In all fairness, there's a lot of overlap between banking and level 2 (a lot of debt and equity valuation stuff if I remember right) so just working will give you a solid start if you choose to do it.

Full disclosure I passed the first 2 then got into an MBA program and am not going to bother to finish because I got a FT gig at a bank and they don't care about it. The opportunity cost of finishing in school is just to high.