Is the work experience requirement to get the CFA charter a joke?

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releasets

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I am still a candidate for the CFA charter but I saw that an Operations Analyst who does pure back office work received the approved work experience. There’s also someone who works as an Accountant of an Investment Firm who obtained it. It looks to me that the work experience is somewhat of a joke and not be taken seriously.
 
Yes. And the charter is a joke too. The mason laying bricks down the road from my home has a CFA Charter.
 
In all seriousness, the work experience review is nowhere as stringent as I’d hope it to be. I’ve known too many charterholders who have their experiences approved even when they had absolutely nothing to do with providing analysis for investment decisions. Those include back office experiences as OP stated to auditing experiences at an accounting firm. Reference check is a joke too. If you had worked 2 years in company A and another 2 years in company B, you could get your references just from two people in company B (if one of them is a CFA charterholder).
The result of this could be devastating as CFA Institute continues to approve all these charterholders with no actual investment analysis experiences who will only go out there to paint negative images for other charterholders.
 
^ well it depends on what you want the charter to be? It sounds like you only want it to be for asset management and ER only. Those are not the only occupations that use the CFA curriculum or may find it relevant. That’s like saying only an auditor should be allowed to qualify for the CPA. there are plenty of uses for each of the credential. blocking off a huge chunk of people just makes it less relevant.
 
It’s not blocking off a huge chunk of people, it’s just blocking off a huge chunk of people who can obtain the charter without actually providing value to the investment process. One could always pass the exams and move into positions that can qualify for the experience criteria but giving people with back office support roles the charter will just worsen the qualify of the CFA charterholder pool.
 
Vandy are you ever actually going to take a CFA exam or do you just get off on talking about the charter?
 
So … is the problem that CFA Institute is allowing work experience that is unrelated to investment decision making, or are supervisors lyi … um … embellishing the descriptions of the rôles their underlings play in that process?
 
da_mad_tiki wrote:
Vandy are you ever actually going to take a CFA exam or do you just get off on talking about the charter?
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lol
 
da_mad_tiki wrote:
Vandy are you ever actually going to take a CFA exam or do you just get off on talking about the charter?
Click to expand...
Finally bit the bullet and actually signed up for level 1 on Monday haha. taking it in December. I decided i needed to stop sitting around and overanalyzing its worth and just go for it. It’s not like im doing anything else that is that compelling in my free time.
 
Not advocating for strictly investment analysis experiences in asset management firms. There are tons of other relevant finance positions including corp dev, investor relations, equity research, credit analysis, and many other roles that require in depth financial analysis. But back office positions and auditing experiences? It’s clear that work experiences are rather easily spinned to make sound relevant, and CFA Institute has no way of identifying it. This is why CA typically receives much more acceptance because the only ways (although not anymore) to obtain it is to work in CA approved firms.
 
I think back office work should qualify. If only front-office work qualified, then there would be little point in doing the CFA as the front-office folks are already front-office. The work experience in FO alone typically is enough to imply that they are doing something investment related. Of course not all front-office roles are equal, but there is less of a bump from the CFA credential there. Back office workers who hope to bump up to a middle/front office role may find the CFA more useful for them. I think the CFA’s goal should be (and is) to open doors, not to simply open more doors for those who are already through the door.
Just another thing, the CFA doesn’t put people into an investment management position. It is the employer who does that. The CFA is simply an indicator that 1) this individual is reasonably diligent, 2) this individual attained a certain level of financial knowledge (CFA curriculum knowledge, not equivalent to investing knowledge). If I were hiring someone who had back office experience and a CFA, I wouldn’t give them some money to manage right off the bat. I might be more inclined to let them do research and make recommendations, but ultimately any prudent employer will assess the background of the employee before letting them take on risk.
 
Macro wrote:
I think back office work should qualify. If only front-office work qualified, then there would be little point in doing the CFA as the front-office folks are already front-office. The work experience in FO alone typically is enough to imply that they are doing something investment related. Of course not all front-office roles are equal, but there is less of a bump from the CFA credential there. Back office workers who hope to bump up to a middle/front office role may find the CFA more useful for them. I think the CFA’s goal should be (and is) to open doors, not to simply open more doors for those who are already through the door.
Just another thing, the CFA doesn’t put people into an investment management position. It is the employer who does that. The CFA is simply an indicator that 1) this individual is reasonably diligent, 2) this individual attained a certain level of financial knowledge (CFA curriculum knowledge, not equivalent to investing knowledge). If I were hiring someone who had back office experience and a CFA, I wouldn’t give them some money to manage right off the bat. I might be more inclined to let them do research and make recommendations, but ultimately any prudent employer will assess the background of the employee before letting them take on risk.
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I work in back office and am hoping the CFA can help me make the move. I may feel different if I was on the other side but while I don’t directly help any investment decision I do see a lot of whats goin on in the markets and am involved in the field. If they were strick about it being investment analysis only, it would just artificially make it harder to get the charter by making it exclusive to people who can already get the jobs (like how the CPA jumped to the 150 credit requirement, which is a way to make it more exclusive artificially, not by making it more challenging)
I do see it from both sides, and I would love to be given a chance to be a jr analyst somewhere now but I didnt go to a great school, and I got so so grades so its not in the cards.
 
CFAI wants their dues right? and the person paying for it wants to use its letters after their name whether they work as a fund accountant or auditor. Everyone is happy.
 
I guess this is a good place to ask what I’ve been wondering…
Does managing a part of college endowment count as work exp? The work I did was pretty much like what I do now at an investment management firm, doing bottom-up analysis, pitching ideas and actually buying/selling stocks. We managed less than 2M, but it was real money and it’s a lot more relevant than other jobs mentioned in op.
What’s problematic is that it was a 1-year-long academic course. I understand by definition it’s not work experience, but I was wondering if anybody thinks it can be considered as one.
 
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