What after CFA??

But doesn’t PhD require Masters?

Don’t worry @sankrutimehta 🙂 Just aim to get a research job for now, get some work experience first. The phd option is always available whenever you want to do it in the future!

Hi @sankrutimehta – yup, long way to go, but it’s good to have dreams and goals!

Personally I’m a fan of work experience over qualifications (if I had to choose between them). If you can get a job in research, by all means go for it. Work there for a couple good years and you will pick up how the business works (for your eventual big goal).

All the stuff you wanted to learn in the Masters for econometrics or economics, if you have your CFA then, I’m sure you find studying occasionally on the weekend a piece of cake. Learn those on weekends if you want, in the current work climate, nothing beats work experience. And there is a tendency to be “overqualified” if you forgo work experience for qualifications.

@sankrutimehta You certainly have a lot of courses planned ahead! 🙂 I’m a commerce graduate as well. I was working previously in Financial Operations for an MNC. The job profile wasn’t great, so I left it a few months back. Planning to get back to job search once the exam gets over.

I’m interested in a few niche areas within finance (Fixed Income, Distressed Security Investing). However, I’m just keeping my options open to take up any decent finance job that comes my way. [-O< I like to go with the flow 🙂 I had PhD on my mind long back. But the time commitment for a full time course is huge. Also, full time options are good if you really want to get into academia in my opinion. I've put those plans on the back burner for now, maybe if things fall into place in the future, I'll think of the Part time PhD courses. Goodluck for L3 :-bd

I aspire to have my own consultancy or research firm..

That’s awesome @sankrutimehta!

Depends what area of research. I believe there is a form of degree / qualification inflation going on, but I’m not sure personally is the best practice, nor should you blindly chase one for the fear of “falling behind”. It’s all about relevance, and more than 2 “alphabets” of qualifications behind your name may start to have a negative impact on your young career – pricing yourself out of the market. Do you think a manager of 4-5 years experience will want to hire a CFA + MBA + PHD + ??? when he probably has 1 of those only (or none, but tons of work experience)?

You’re only 22 and almost done with CFA. For research, that’s a great qualification to have, especially at that age. It’s more worthwhile to dedicate your full focus and time to get a junior research role now.

I guess the question is can you get a role in research now without doing a PhD @sankrutimehta? If you can then you don’t need a PhD. CFA is a great qualification to have for research, never heard of PhD being a specific beneficial requirement, unless it’s extremely quantitative etc.

@AJFinance: thanks for the perspective..the time commitment for PhD is the only thing that’s stopping me..cus getting back to work after about 5 years will make me over qualified as Sophie rightly mentioned.

@sophie: I understand that CFA is a good qualification..but I believe its just so cus there aren’t many CFA charter holders -around…once the number goes up..the value will go down..which is bound to happen over the next 4-5 years as I foresee..thats the precise reason to take up something as an add-on along with working so I don’t deprive myself of the experience as u had pointed.
Again its just this brain-storming thats helping me figure out..Does econometric or business economics course for about a year add value in research?

@sankrutimehta I don’t think that the value of the CFA charter would be affected much. There are a few reasons that drive my perspective,

1. Its the quality of the program (more than the exclusivity) that matters. CFA has a great curriculum and the way they have structured it is one of a kind. More people earning the charter wouldn’t necessarily hurt the CFA brand as long as the difficulty level of the exams and the quality of the curriculum is retained.

2. CFA institute doesn’t have any direct competitors providing a similar degree.

3. More Charterholders around might also mean that the organisations around the world recognize the brand/certification better, especially in those countries where it isn’t established yet.

I do see your concerns/beliefs about the inverse correlation of the Value of CFA certification and the no.of Charterholders, and also believe it to be true to a certain extent. Taking the example of an MBA degree. More students graduate from B schools every year in almost every country, than the no of members of the CFA institute till date since its inception. But again, it comes down to the quality of the degree, the b school you go to, how much you stand to gain from the program, rather than the degree itself. Then again, an MBA is provided by multiple universities while theres only one CFA institute.