CFA Charterholders say it's worth it just to impress people
If you’re considering shelling out thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of your life to become a CFA Charterholder, you should probably ask yourself a key question: are you impressing anyone by doing that?
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If you ask existing CFA Charterholders, they’ll say yes, you’re impressing a lot of people. Unfortunately, they also admit that you’re not impressing them with your financial acumen. You’re impressing them with your work ethic.
Between two candidates with similar backgrounds and similar education, recruiters will prefer one that holds a CFA charter. “Not for the technical knowledge,” said Patricia Ribelles, investment fund specialist for Sabadell Urquijo Banca Privada at a recent CFA seminar, but for “the other skills.” What skills? “The ability to focus even if you have a full-time job, the ability to prioritise, and the ability to make an effort and to sacrifice,” Ribelles said.
Sacrifice is a big theme among CFA Charterholders, which isn’t surprising for a qualification that takes an estimated 900 hours to complete, and that's presuming you pass each exam first time. “I would sacrifice going out with friends, or other activities that I liked, just so I could follow my studying schedule,” said Maan Alkheleiwi, CFA board member and head of core funding for Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund. “It proves you’re committed,” Alkheleiwi said. You are “studying 300 hours for every level.”
What exactly can you do after all of that hard work? You can take a pay cut, for one. Satish Betadpur, head of India investments and MD at asset manager State Street, was working in tech for a pension fund in New York and used the CFA exams to become a fixed income trader. He already had an MBA, but Betadpur said it was only when he spent two years studying for CFA exams that he had the confidence to ask his boss to move into trading. He took a pay cut to do so and rejoined as an analyst, despite being several years into his technology career. “That showed to him that I was really interested,” Betadpur explained.
Some banks have fallen out of love with the CFA exams. Berenberg, for instance, made the CFA exams an optional part of its graduate program years ago; then-head of European equities Laura Janssens said that juniors' time was better spent "on more tailored career development and building relationships with colleagues and clients."
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