CFA= master's degree??
What is a CFA equivalent to? a master's degree? and can you study while working? do most people drop out of the program? Do you have a good chance of getting a job with it?
Not equivalent to Master's degree. More for career progression than transformation.
You can study while working, although don't underestimate the time required to pass.
Most people never finish the program.
You can absolutely get a job without it.
These were all pretty dumb questions that could have been answered with some searching.
How nice of you
It was pretty nice of him; those questions were basic and unimaginative.
And yet he wrote a wrong answer - CFA has Masters equivalency in UK and a few other countries - http://www.cfainstitute.org/ethics/regulatory/benchmark/Pages/cfa_progr…
[quote=Improving]And yet he wrote a wrong answer - CFA has Masters equivalency in UK and a few other countries - http://www.cfainstitute.org/ethics/regulatory/benchmark/Pages/cfa_progr…] that's great and all, but this isn't about who the CFA have been able to sit down and sign up to their spiel, it's about what firms think, does the hiring manger think CFA = Target Msc? that is what people really want to know....
[quote=Improving]And yet he wrote a wrong answer - CFA has Masters equivalency in UK and a few other countries - http://www.cfainstitute.org/ethics/regulatory/benchmark/Pages/cfa_progr…]
A CFA may have equivalency, but doesn't change anything. First and foremost, you need to spend 3+ years doing it (1.5 being the quickest, but you still need the relevant work experience to get the charter.) Also- most bankers couldn't care less about the CFA. If you are looking at other lines of work (AM, HF, ER etc.) you would be best served with a CFA, but it is not a magic fix all.
Also- getting a Masters has more to do with rebranding yourself/ OCR opps than a CFA would. A CFA, at best may get some cursory interest in your resume, but if most hiring managers don't perceive it to be at the same level as your UG institution, you're still out of luck.
So yeah, the CFA can help you. It may have an equivalency in the UK. But it doesn't carry the same benefits a full time program would.
Some research I just did (for an unrelated reason). According to payscale.com CFA charterholders make ~10% more than non charterholders. That doesn't cover bonuses though. Whether it's just that the kind of person that gets a CFA is also the kind of person who finds ways to progress, or because of the CFA itself, I'm unaware.
Looking for internships I have been told, "We want people who are at least CFA lvl 1". That was for an internship, not even a full time job.
Note: all the info pertains to equity research
Being at the end of my MSc. Finance program and at the same time a CFA candidate, regardless of what any institution says or thinks I will hire a CFA charter holder over an MSc. grad any day of the week. Period
I also think it depends on what type of masters degree you're comparing it to. CFA may be preferable to an MSc but perhaps not if the MSc was a pure quant degree and you're going into S&T. However, an MBA would generally be considered higher than a CFA program in North America.
I think in some ways a CFA is like a masters...it is a higher level education-type credential. Putting aside ancillary benefits/weaknesses, I would say the direct difference is that a CFA shows more breadth, while a masters shows more depth (usually).
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