CFA and/or CAIA of value for consulting?
Hi everybody!
Currently I am pursuing a Msc Management degree in Germany and after I have graduated next year, I want to start working in Consulting. Preferably at MBB. But I am also very interested in Private Equity and don't know if I want to work in Consulting for all my life. I have a bachelor's in business administration with a focus on finance and accounting and am going trough the FMVA program right now to boost my Excel/Financial Modeling skills.
So my question is, would a CFA or CAIA be of any value for a consultant trying to break into PE? Or maybe even for Consulting itself, for finance related projects or projects with financial institutions?
I would appreciate some insights of people who have gone from Consulting to PE and have an idea about the value of these designations for such an endeavour
Thanks!
I was also thinking about this before. I'm an incoming MBA student and my goal is to go into consulting. I read somewhere that CFA is not that useful in management consulting. I think your time would be better spent in mastering case interviews. You need to be more of a generalist in consulting. CFA is for finance specialists. In my case, I decided to just channel my time to learning another language (German) and solving cases. However, CFA would be very useful if your goal is PE. It's even more useful if your target location for PE is US.
By the way, I also finished the FMVA program and it's very very useful in my current independent consulting gig. The excel and powerpoint skills are very useful. It's very practical unlike the CFA which is very theoretical.
I have both, and I would not see it as helpful for consulting. CAIA would help you to have some background knowledge on PE (maybe) if you don't already have some level of understanding different types, but the program is designed to help candidates understand how everything fits in the context of an overall portfolio of assets. It is all very broad though. Also, these are huge time commitments, especially the CFA. The CFA is really for Asset/Portfolio/Wealth managers and is incredibly valuable in those industries, but not so much outside of it. People that recognize it will say, "oh that's impressive" but won't really help ops much outside of the industry.
Learning a new language or networking would be much better use of time and effort. If you are really interested in breaking into any new LoB there is no replacement for networking and getting in front of the right people.
Thanks to both of you!
I know that the CFA is not particularly useful for the daily tasks of a consultant. I just thought it might add a bit of credibility when working with financial institutions. But you both seem to say that the CFA could be useful for PE. Therefore I take it that it would be useful for a consultant, who wants to move to PE, so it might be of interest for me a few years down the road. I just don't want to have a disadvantage against other applicants coming from Investment Banking, so I thought the CFA could make up for that.
Also you have mentioned learning a new language,That plays exactly into my hands, since I just love learning languages as a hobby. Which one's do you think would be the most useful to learn for career purposes?
It’s all about targeting. If you’re going to be in the south (Texas, SoCal) then Spanish is a no-brainer. I have a buddy who speaks Mandarin and he is irreplaceable at his job (attorney to M&A transactions). If you don’t know or don’t have a target in mind, fish where the fish are and go with the most used global languages.
CFA is very uncommon in PE. Check any firm's bios and I'll be surprised if you see any CFA's.
Even if someone disagrees with me and still wants to stretch a case for CFA being useful to PE . . OK fine, but in addition to that stretch its a second additional leap to then say CFA is useful for someone in MC who might end up in PE maybe one day.
If someone's goal is MC then PE, their best bet is to maximize their chances of getting into the best MC situation possible. You say "but I already know I can land at MBB, so what else can I do to help get into PE." I would say those other enhancements (like CFA for example) are so minor and speculative that you're better served by doubling down on your MBB prep so you can get more offers and have better choice of firm/group. You may not know today which firm/group you want to maximize your PE odds, but you'll probably have a view when the time comes.
Adding to the chorus, the CFA/ CAIA are nice-to-haves, but they will at best offer marginal improvements to your application. The value you get for the time required is not worth it.
A lot of people may have a CFA and end up in PE, but the cfa will never get you directly into PE. I’d wager all those people had banking or MC experience before - maybe family office. You’ll rarely see someone get into PE from middle or back office once they have their CFA - it just doesn’t mean much.
I’d focus on killing your cases. Spend 300 hours knocking cases out of the park. Will have plenty of options there.
Thank you all for your respnses! It is actually quite relieving to know that I do not have to spend so much time on the CFA. So the consensus seems to be to just study and master cases. Alright! Will do! What do you guys think is the best way to do it? I know there are a lot of websites out there, but which ones are actually worth it? What are your thoughts on preplounge or the case prep offerend here on WSO?
Since I am going on a semester abroad starting next January at Cornell University, I wanted to take the opportunity and network a little bit. I am looking for an internship, so I thought I might also apply for one in NYC. And if I should get an interview there I want to be best prepared!
Leverage the Management Consulting club at Cornell. They place decently well at MBB so I bet their MC club is pretty good. Summer interviews take place in early Jan so you will have a bunch of offerees that might (or might not) be willing to help.
Don't waste your time in the CFA!
Wow I didn't even know about that Management Consulting Club, that sounds like an awesome opportunity! Thanks man!
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