Time allowed to pass SIE/Series 63/79

I will provide my 2 cents as I just took the SIE and Series 63 (working on the 79 at the moment) and what I recommend how you approach the exams and studying. Like one of the posters said up top, the key is to do as much studying before you start as your bandwidth on time significantly shrinks the moment you walk into the office. If you have already started your position you just need to devote any spare moment you have to studying as the quicker you get the exams out of the way the faster you can actually be a value to your team.

The SIE exam is a comprehensive overview of finance, meaning that its not a mile deep and an inch wide but an inch deep and a mile wide. The information you learn will not require deep understanding but there are a lot of details that you need to cover. Whatever study guide you use, do not base your studying on just doing the Q&A found in the online resource ( I used Kaplan for this). You actually need to read the book and take notes on the details as I mentioned before as this will make up roughly 60% of your exam. I spent 10 days studying for the exam, but quite literally writing notes on anything that was not bolded or italicized as there are questions on the exam that come from areas that are not heavily emphasized in the book. Once you feel you have a good grasp on the concepts you can actually go to the FINRA website and they have a mock SIE exam. I HIGHLY recommend doing so as this is actually a fair gauge on your understanding of the concepts that you will find on exam day. I only got 45/75 right when I did it, which meant I had to go over everything again until I could recite some of the most asinine concepts that will never be applied again. But if you follow that you should be good to go.

Series 63 - this has to be the most boring exam of all time. But it is crucial if you actually want to be paid a bonus or commission on your job. My approach was a bit more thought out on this one as 3 of the 5 sections carry a significant weight so I focused my attention on Section 1, 4 & 5 which constitutes about 85% of the total exam. Make sure you still read the other parts as the questions from those sections are not that difficult and you don't want to lose easy points. Once again you should read each chapter answer the questions at the back of the sections and go over the 3 sections with the highest weight the most. If you have an online resource even better as this exam is based completely on situational scenarios. The majority of questions you find on exam day will go like "Tim works at a BD, and has a client in State X but is only registered in State Y, customer does..." you get the drill. Be sure to understand what happens in each type of scenario for BDs, Agents, IAs, and IARs. This will make your exam day so much easier.

As for the 79 I am going to follow my approach as to not spend more than 10 days studying for it as I have actually devoted a lot of time studying IB concepts so unless something goes awry I don't anticipate this requiring a different study schedule.

Good luck!