Following up with your questions on FRM and related stuff-- I came across this general query about appearing for CFA along with FRM and all --
The fact of the matter is that in initial stages of your career in Finance, you hover around trying to find the exact place you would want to build your career in Finance. I mean, there are literally hundreds on different fields and professions within Finance and one normally spens a lot of time to figure out the field of his liking. Now FRM and CFA have different purposes and objectives. One appears for FRM to enter risk management, quantitative jobs, credit risk, market risk related jobs. CFA( so to speak) is oriented more towards Asset management, equity research and investment management jobs. One thing about CFA is that it matters only when yoy complete atleast 2 levels. Ideally you should go through all the three levels to get a materialistic gain. On the other hand, FRM ha sjust one level and hence is a little more challenging , if you compare it woth CFA levels individually. In starting stages of one's career, I feel that it doesn't really matter whether you are FRM or CFA ( when you are applying for entry level jobs).
Front end jobs in Finance would value your experience more than anything. I mean, relevant experience carries more weightage than anything else. Say for example, a person with 3 years of equity research experience is significantly better than any FRM or CFA guy, ofcourse provided that the company has a descent reputation. If anyone wants to enter capital markets and say wanna become a trader, than relevant experience is a huge plus than any degree whatsoever.
To sumamrize, I believe that in starting stages of your career, one can take either route to get that first break. After that , one automatically figures out his/ her own way. One more point is that all these certifications exams get refunded once you enter a relevant job, so if one has any plans of post graduation from abroad, then ideally it would make much more sense to appear for these cartifications once to get a fin job. But ofcourse, there is no one single way. People in investment banking enter from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures. One thing that I am preety sure about is "Networking". The bigger network of friends and seniors you have in these companies , the better it is. Around 60-80 % of the jobs are filled with referrals. So one should always strive to have a network of alumnis and friends to be aware of job openings...
Keep asking your doubts and quesries and I am sure now I will reply back to them as quickly as I can..
Cheers
BG
Hey!
ReplyDeleteI am new here, ok the thing is i want to take the FRM exam this november whether full or not i have yet to decide and need help on that. I gave CFA level 1 this june and by the grace of God have passed it . Now i want to take the FRM exam this june. I graduated january 2009 and have no work experience (that is not the concern right now). Now what i wanted to ask is basically that looking at the time, (its almost august) i have to "start" studyin now. So first that is the concern, do i have enough time? the reason i decided to take the full exam this november is that coz the structure is changing and its the last time the full exam can be given, it may sound stupid but this is one of my concerns....should i go for level one or the full? Moral is high coz i passed cfa level 1 but i am tryin to be practical....i believe the frm exam is not that easy...right? The only thing i saw is that it has 140 total question and cfa level had 240 so i was like what the heck :P....but again i dun have any idea about the course exam and all and nor do i know anyone who has given the exam....so if you guys could kindly help me out with this....the material i will be using is schweser notes (have 2008 right now) and the handbook..
Waiting for your reply..
Thankyou.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI am considering to register for FRM but I have a question to ask:
How convenient would the exam be for a person with non-technical background.
Hello sir,
ReplyDeleteI am currently a student at Indian Institute of technology Kharagpur pursuing B.Tech in Metallurgical and Materials Engg. and M.Tech in Financial Engineering. My course curriculum for FE mostly includes the topics and models given in FRM syllabus.Thus, I will be having the knowledge of these topics in future.But, to supplement to my CV for job opportunities I am still confuse whether to give to appear for CFA level 1st or FRM level 1st. I am a novice in this field and does not know that specialisation in which field will give me better job opportunities. Moreover having done my degree and appeared for one of the examination ,do i still have to do MBA from reputed institution for better career growth in the future in the field of finance and will these certification and degree help me in getting into a good business school ?
Thanks
Please Reply on may mail id too if possible.. sachin18sharma1990@gmail.com
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