Hey All,
First of all, apologies for posting in this forum again but I have a somewhat more defined question to ask. I've done my research and have seen all the posts saying that the CFA is more geared towards the public landscape as opposed to anything dealing with private markets. However, I've also seen posts saying that in Canada the CFA is widely recognized across all areas in finance and on average 20%+ employed in PE have a CFA. I know I don't have the traditional M&A experience (ECM side + client-facing experience), but I was hoping the CFA would show my passion/dedication for finance. I was wondering if doing it around this age was at all worthwhile to my career prospects? I was hoping to have LVL 2 done in June which doesn't seem like that much time to grind and study.
Thank you all in advance!
Got into a MM PE shop in Canada with only level I. VPs here told me the CFA wouldn't be useful, one of them having stopped at level I years ago after getting into PE as well. If your interviewer values time well spent and knows, as he/she should, that your job won't require to know the details behind pension fund accounting formulas and ANOVA tables, you should be fine. TBH, after almost a year on the job, I can safely say that I've used maybe 1/10 of what the CFA curriculum teaches its candidates, most of it being the equity valuation and alternative investments sections. Otherwise, complete waste of time IMO and I wouldn't filter out a candidate for an Analyst gig at my firm if I knew they had stopped at level I.
Thank you very much for your response! Really appreciate you taking the time. If you don't mind me asking, is the CAIA of any use? Also if you have any tips for someone who's currently in an ECM advisory role on how to break into the industry I would be incredibly grateful. Been passionate about PE for a long time now and I've started working on a sample LBO + exit plan for a small company to show I'm serious. I'm sort-of-thinking that because I had both valuation/client experience - it might be worthwhile to break into the sourcing side and then move to execution.
Thank you very much again!
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