CFA: Approach, Advantages and Opportunities

The CFA Program is the benchmark qualification for the investment industry. It has over 150,000 charter holders today who work as Portfolio Managers, Equity Research Analysts, Fund Managers, Wealth Managers, CFOs, and Risk Consultants. Completing The Program confirms mastery over the rigorous curriculum which covers content necessary for investment industry segments like Equity, Fixed Income, Private Equity, Derivatives, and Real Estate. We bring here interviews with three BITSians who have appeared and cracked three different levels of CFA, to acquaint you with the approach towards preparation, the advantages of having CFA on your profile, and the Opportunities for those who clear these examinations.

1) First, could you please introduce yourself to our audience.

Samaksh

➽(Level 1 cleared) I am Samaksh, a 2015 graduate with a dual degree in Economics and Mechanical from BITS Goa.

Sunny

➽➽(Level 2 Candidate) Hi, I'm Sunny Paruthi. I graduated with a dual in Eco and Civil in 2018. I was also a part of the Economics and Finance Assoc. at BITS. I am currently working for Citibank as a Portfolio Risk Analyst, which involves me driving analytics for the credit card lending portfolio for Citi India business.

Harsh

➽➽➽( Level 3 Cleared) Hi guys! I am Harsh Nijhawan. My ID number is 2014A8PS399P, and I graduated in 2018 from Pilani Campus with a degree in Electronics and Instrumentation. I worked at HSBC for two years before starting my own company, "Wealthee Monk."

2) What drove you to apply for CFA?

➽ I was free for a month and a half before PS-2 started, I thought of not applying for an internship before PS-2 and utilizing it for learning more about Finance before PS-2 starts. Also, I was sure of applying for a Finance PS, so I thought that might help.

➽➽ The need for CFA came from me trying to understand the different possible careers out there related to finance. Also, I felt that I needed to refresh my memory and understanding of most of the core concepts I learned while I was in BITS but wasn't applying directly at my job. Another critical factor towards me choosing to pursuit CFA is that I am not in a hurry to get an MBA at this stage of my career, so to keep myself in the state of continuously learning something new and relevant, I chose to pursue this.

➽➽➽ I found out that I had an inclination towards Finance during my 3rd year through the Finance courses on campus and felt that CFA was the next step for me to become better.

3) In what way did CFA help you? How important is it for climbing up the ladder?

➽ To be honest, I am yet to understand how CFA would help me. But it's an excellent program for learning perspective. If someone wants exposure in Finance and couldn't do a minor/Eco, he should try for at least Level-1. Also, It obviously helps in case you want to apply for masters ( specifically in US grad schools)

➽➽ Although CFA gets increasingly focused toward Investing in the subsequent levels, it does help you gain a deeper understanding of Finance as a subject and as an industry.

As far as applying for jobs is considered, CFA is definitely used as a filtering criterion for many of the jobs posted nowadays. It is of great help in getting your resume through the initial screening. However, since I am in the early stages of my career, I have yet to see any benefit in climbing up the corporate ladder. My personal experience says that networking skills, ability to portray one's output, and lastly, their work and deliverables (In that order) are more critical when it comes to being successful in a career.

One important thing to consider as a pro for CFA is that it gives you access to a network of professionals in the industry through events, seminars, webinars, and workshops. These are totally up to the willingness of the candidate to pursue or not.

➽➽➽CFA gives you comprehensive knowledge that allows you to do things on your own. Meaning it gives you the confidence to be able to do things from scratch.

For many jobs, CFA is definitely considered as a criterion.

Many fields, such as Financial Planning, Evaluation, and Wealth Management in the program, have come handy.

Also, CFA does add weight to your resume and will help if/when you apply for MFin or MBA.

4) How did your college life help you prepare for it? Did you appear for any Level during your college period? Did you graduate with a Minor in Finance?

➽I gave my Level -1 before my Ps-2 started, And I have an Economics degree. You don't need to prepare a lot for level 1 if you have done Finance courses. The syllabus of the certification is the same except for one or two new topics. I would say one month of preparation is enough if you have done well in your Fin. courses.

➽➽The concepts on CFA would definitely be somewhat new for anyone who isn't pursuing Economics/Finance, but the good thing about Finance as a subject is that it is very intuitive and scalable; a lot of the topics in level-1 would give you a gentle push in this domain. So, I wouldn't consider not pursuing a Minor in Finance or an Economics degree as a barrier.

I did not appear for any levels during college, a significant reason being the cost involved. A good option to reduce the financial burden is to pursue your CFA while working because many MNCs provide financial support for education.

➽➽➽Although I took all the finance courses, I don't have a minor in Finance. The curriculum at BITS does help with the knowledge required for level 1, but the mentality that I developed at the university was my most significant gain. I appeared for level 1 while interning at EY for my PS2. It took me three weeks of preparation to get ready for the same. I also gave my level 2 a month after Psenti.

5) How did you prepare for the first levels of the exams? How can Finance aspirants at BITS approach it along with their studies during the final or pre-final year?

➽It's pretty easy for anyone who has done the finance course, So an Ideal strategy would be applying for the exam right after completing the finance courses.

➽➽I felt that self-study is sufficient for Level-1. I mostly studied on weekends and after working hours.

You have two options available:-

1. Official course books which are extremely good and cover the topic extensively.

2. Course Material (books or videos) from any of the approved course providers. These are more exam-focused.

I primarily used videos and end of chapter questions from the official course books to prepare for the exam.

➽➽➽For level 1, most of the content is covered in the courses at BITS. Studying Statistics and Economics, along with the Finance courses, will help. An example of a beneficial course is Econometrics.

6) Could you tell us about the opportunities finance students should look for beyond PS2 and College Placements?

➽The easiest way to break into the Finance sector for an engineer is through a PS-2 program. We don't have any Finance company for Placements here at Goa, but one year/6-month experience will help if you want to apply for a job externally.

➽➽College placements and PS2 are obviously a good way of getting into the field, but one should pay close attention to the jobs posted on various job portals and keep in touch with the alumni network of the college to apply for roles that are more oriented towards their own personal and professional goals.

The finance industry opportunities can range from front-end M&A, investment banking, PE, corporate Finance, trading and treasury roles to middle office analytics, modelling, Risk, research to back-office roles like reporting, operations, etc.

Another exciting domain is Fintech, which offers an alternative to traditional finance roles by leveraging technology to solve problems.

So one has to make conscious decisions considering his/her strengths.

➽➽➽If you want to pursue Finance, explore, and choose a niche. Then, build your profile by doing professional courses. Companies demand people who can do things from start to finish by themselves. Therefore, having an amalgamation of economics, statistics, and coding, along with Finance, is necessary.

7)Any other advice you would like to give to the students at BITS pursuing a Finance Minor?

➽Try to get practical exposure of whatever you are learning; Try investing, trading in stocks (Don't worry if you go wrong); Read Company and Industry Reports to get an overview.

➽➽My advice would be to supplement your knowledge with projects, summer/winter internships to build on your theoretical knowledge. Projects need not be overly complicated but representative of the knowledge you've gained. There is an abundance of material/project ideas available online for reference.

➽➽➽CFA is the most comprehensive finance course and deals with many topics extensively. It is also handy for Entrepreneurship and Wealth Management. Doing the CFA is also beneficial if you haven't yet chosen your niche and are exploring things, but if you have no finance knowledge whatsoever, an MBA might be better for you