How strict are they on work experience?

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jrumph

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For my 15 months after college, I worked at a retail bank in a development program. I wasn't licensed so I couldn't hock their mutual funds and annuities, but I did do a fair share of educating both customers and co-workers on IRA's and CD's and helping to calculate rates to find out the best way for them to put their money to work within the boundaries of a retail bank (CD vs. savings account, savings account vs. IRA, Roth vs. Traditional, etc).

I am now working as an Investment Analyst at an endowment, so I'm sure this experience will count towards the CFA requirements. My problem is that I'm only planning on staying here ~3.5 years before going back to business school. I started here at the end of summer so pushing my stay here to a full 4 years would be cutting it awfully close to interfering with starting business school in the fall.

Is there any chance the CFA Institute would give me credit for my year plus at the bank, or am I going to run into a problem with only having 3.5 of the 4 years of acceptable work experience?
 
I think if you focus on the work you did advising and educating clients on investment selection when you describe your first job, there is a good chance CFAI will count it towards the work requirement.
 
Anyone have thoughts/advice on how they will treat actuarial work experience after the rules changed eliminating "actuary" as an eligible job title? I work in a consulting firm but I spend a lot of my time on the asset side - monitoring investment performance and consulting on investment policy etc. etc. This is why I started the CFA exams. Any thoughts on whether or not this is a waste of time for me to continue? I have the firxt exam under my belt.
 
bluekayaker, I think you're a bit screwed unless you're truly working in asset management. Do the actuaries you work with have their CFA?
 
None of my colleagues have their CFA. Some in the other offices of my company do, but my office is only a dozen in size. We don't have job titles. I thought I might be able to argue that I do spend most of my time on asset consulting. I hope I'm not screwed but please offer advice/comments if you have any!
 
for jrumph,
why not stay there for 4 years. extra half years to guarantee your charter....
and even if you do..they may not recognise all of them. Have you thought about it?

for bluekayaker,
You can contact CFA inst. but it did say work involve extensive number, asset managing
and etc will be counted. so I actually believe what you do will count.
 
I started my current job at the end of the summer. Pushing my stay here to a full 4 years will interfere with starting business school in the fall. I can manage about 3 years, 10 months here but getting it up to a full 4 years will be cutting it a little too close.
 
They are pretty strict I think, as they should be. I know someone with a similar amount of work experience that was not awarded the charter yet and will have to wait until they are done with B-school.

No offense to the person asking, but if they say the work requirement is 4 years, but they give the charter to people with 3.5 years--what's the point?

If you're working hard for this charter, you don't want the standards to be watered down.
 
I wasn't asking if they would give it to me with 3.5 years of experience. I was asking if my prior 1.5 years of experience would be accepted.
 
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