CFA Jobs

What are some examples of CFA related professions:

• Equity (stock) analysis
• Examples of companies are any major investment bank, Standard and Poors, Value Line, etc.
  
• Credit (bond) analysis
• Standard and Poors, Moody’s, Fitch Ratings, DBRS
• Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures
• Any major investment bank, namely Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers. There are also a number of boutique M&A firms.
• Investment banking
• Conduct initial public offerings of stocks
• Conduct placements of bonds
• Trading
• View a list of investment banks on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Investment_Banks
• Private equity
• Carlyle group, Texas Pacific Group, Blackstone, KKR, Goldman Sachs
• List of the 50 largest Private Equity firms: http://www.peimedia.com/pei50
• Real estate investing
• Vornado, Equity Office Properties, Equity Residental, Brookfield Properties
• Pension & Endowment management/consulting
• Russell, Cambridge Associates, Ennis Knupp, Barclays Global
• Visit Pension and Investing online for a list of various P&I companies: http://www.pionline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=PENSIONFUNDDIRECTORY&IssueDate=20070122
• Private wealth management (private banking)
• All major investment banks, Mellon Financial, Stanford Financial, US Trust
• Hedge funds
• Bridgewater, D.E. Shaw, SAC Capital Partners, etc.
• Mutual funds
• Fidelity, American Funds (a Capital Group Company), Vanguard, etc.
• Economic consulting
• NERA, LECG
• Tax and transaction consulting (i.e., accounting firm)
• KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, etc.

If you are unfamiliar with any of these visit www.investopedia.com or www.wikipedia.com Investopedia’s definition of Private equity is lacking. Wikipedia has a good explanation of private equity, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_equity

Top CFA employers by region:
http://cfachicago.org/pdf/pcr_top_employers.pdf

Efinancial News' Guide to Careers in Financial Markets Your Guide to Finding a Job in Securities and Banking:
http://www.efinancialcareers.com/images/fuseads/inhouse/cifm_us.pdf

Deciding to Take the CFA Exam

If you’re interested in the CFA designation you're probably in one of a few different groups.

• You've heard of the exam and you're interested in learning more.
• You've researched the exam and you're undecided about taking it.

If you've heard of the exam and you're interested in learning more:

Begin by reading about the content of the exam to determine if you are truly interested in the material. Exam content can be found at http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/courseofstudy/topic.html. If you are not interested in the material don’t take them exam. If you are interested you must decide if taking the exam is right for you.

If you’ve researched the exam and you’re still undecided about taking the exam, ask yourself:

What kind of benefit will the CFA charter provide me? Monetary, upward mobility, increased knowledge?

• View a compensation survey of CFA charterholder statistics: http://www.cfainstitute.org/aboutus/press/release/05releases/20050506_01.html

Does taking the CFA exam make sense given my current career position?

• Is it favorable for a 50 year old CFO working 70 hour weeks at a major corporation to pursue the CFA designation? Probably not. Will taking the CFA be helpful to a college graduate who is two years out of school and wants to make the jump from marketing to an equity analysis position? Most likely.

Am I prepared to study between 10-20 hours per week for four to five months?

• If you cannot study for at least 10 hours per week for four months you have a low chance of passing the exam.

Do I have the will power to study this much? How will this commitment affect my life?

• The time you put into the exam will greatly take away time with friends and family.

Common reasons for pursuing the CFA designation:

• Interest in exam content
• Desire to increase knowledge
• Improve compensation
• Augment upward and lateral career mobility
• Signal competence to current and potential employers
• Career change to finance
• Career change within finance
• Prepare for the analytical side of an MBA program
• Facilitate admission to a high caliber MBA program