Is it possible to become a Financial Analyst at a Hedge Fund without a degree or CFA?

For the record, I'm located in Toronto, Canada.

I come from the tech world and the reason I ask is because a lot of positions in tech can be obtained without a college pedigree. If you're good at programming for example all that you must show are some skills and a passion to learn.

Is this at all possible at a Hedge Fund? For someone who shows initiative and obtains the knowledge, is it possible for them to break in or is it just a pipe dream without some sort of accreditation (CFA, MBA, etc)?

6 Comments
 
"astfin-juki"

No.

The reason I said "without a degree" is because I have a Bachelor of Science , so nothing in finance. Does this help? Or is a degree outside of finance useless?

 
Best Response

A Bachelor of Science is a degree... A tech degree is more useful than a finance degree in many HFs nowadays. Very few front office roles left where you just wing it with your finance knowledge. There needs to be quantitative analysis. I work at a Macro HF, and we would hire a STEM major for an analyst any day over a finance/econ major. Simply put those who run the money already know the finance/econ so they don't need an analyst for that, but what they may have trouble doing is gathering and processing and analyzing tons of data.

 
"ThinkMacro"

A Bachelor of Science is a degree... A tech degree is more useful than a finance degree in many HFs nowadays. Very few front office roles left where you just wing it with your finance knowledge. There needs to be quantitative analysis. I work at a Macro HF, and we would hire a STEM major for an analyst any day over a finance/econ major. Simply put those who run the money already know the finance/econ so they don't need an analyst for that, but what they may have trouble doing is gathering and processing and analyzing tons of data.

Any advice you could give me ThinkMacro on getting my foot in the door? It isn't a career road I'm taking simply for the money, but because I genuinely enjoy (or at least, the hours I've spent researching about it) the role of an analyst.

I'm willing to put in the time and effort into learning everything I can, I just want to know the best path as to be given a chance. What do you think? Or do I have to get a loan and go back to school to earn an MBA (or MFA, or MFE) and hopefully land a position?

 

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