What actual jobs does the CFA get people?

Question

As someone who's a bit further along in my career, and who's worked in multiple areas (IB, asset management, PE, VC) I get a lot of younger folks asking me for career advice.

One question I'm getting a lot the last few years is "so I just got my CFA, now what do I do with it?"  100% of the time these are juniors who already work in some sort of asset management or wealth management role, and they took the CFA to "open doors".  Exactly what doors, they weren't sure, but they liked the idea of opening doors so off they went to get a CFA.

I don't have a CFA but I'm familiar with the material.

Whatever1984 · Accepted Answer

Here ya go: My Charter got me my job.

Half a decade ago I was wandering around in the wilderness of WM as part of an odd financial planning as an employee benefit group.  A friend who had broken out to become an external wholesaler at an indy shop called me to say that their technical guy had left.  I interviewed and they liked me, and also that they could hire me for cheap, especially compared to other Charterholders. (it was a 50% raise for me) I got an offer less than 24 hours after the interview, and the only sticking point was that I insisted on giving the old job two weeks notice.

QE_Infinity · Answer

I have mine, and in my opinion, it doesn't 'open doors' as much as it 'keeps doors open'. I think it's kind of expected table stakes for a lot of jobs in asset management, wealth management, insurance investing, equity research, insurance investment management, etc. The information doesn't really make anyone a great investor, but at the very least it gives you a background in most topics and provides a good starting base off which to grow, depending on which path you take (equities, fixed income, insurance, pensions, personal wealth management, derivatives, etc).

Incoming cfa level 1 charterholder · Answer

You can make that argument that "it's not that hard to get something you just need to put in the time" for everything. It's not hard to be a rocket scientist if you study math each and every day for many years. The exam is really challenging and the amount of information that you need to retain for it is insane.

OP, CFA definitely helps with getting interviews and cool front office jobs. Passing level 1 helped me tremendously and helped me get my first role in front office. I'm sure that once I pass level 2 I'll have even more firms reach out to me for interviews.

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What actual jobs does the CFA get people?

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What actual jobs does the CFA get people?

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