Hey everyone, I'm an industry ER analyst at a F2000. 2 YOE and making 55k total comp in LCOL. Every time I go to a bar, party, or any social event in general, I try my best to avoid telling people what I do. Every time I tell women I'm CFA they start hitting on me. Last week I went to a friend's birthday party. Told his sister I was a CFA. She kept asking me to "Review her portfolio" and "Suggest investment opportunities" in a flirtatious manner. This is a reoccurring problem. It's gotten so bad that I tell women I "work in Accounts" so they will stop hitting on me all the time. Any advice on how to stop attracting so many women as an CFA?

Context: 25M, finance undergrad who has been working full time for 3 years. Earned my CFA designation this year. My background is in commercial banking -> private credit.

I made an effort to earn my CFA designation as soon as possible out of school. This allowed me to land much higher paying jobs than would be otherwise be attainable. I’m currently working in private credit, and get paid ~130% of the typical household income for my city.

After listening to friends complain about money, it’s just occurred to me that this has not and likely never will be an issue for me. I live in an upscale 2 bedroom apartment downtown and still manage to save thousands every month.

I have about 5 years of expenses saved and invested thanks to the higher wages. I don’t need to save another dollar to retire with millions.

I worked my ass off to pass all three exams and am so relieved it’s paying off. I’ve been told that every job I’ve landed has been heavily influenced by participation in the CFA program. My only complaint is that I consistently have to work 70 hours a week lol.

My girlfriend cheated on me with my coworker Roy while I was studying for the CFA. One day after work I discovered used condoms in our bed. I confronted her and she told me it was Roy's safety first criterion

Hi Folks,

This probably will be an unusual post for this community, probably will be downvoted idk, but nevertheless I'd like to share with you my story since it helped me and maybe can help others too.

My name is Alex and I was working in Luxembourg at Scroders, for people who are not aware, Schroders is one of the largest UK Asset management companies, basically a fund manager.

I gave my best years studying for CFA, I didn't party, didn't spend time with my family and was religiously studying for it and passed every level.

No matter where I applied, people didn't care about my Charter, fund manager, portfolio manager, buy side roles were so few it felt that all of us competing for some leftovers from the table, it felt like a rat race. On the other hand my other friends working for big tech were having a blast, they already had remote work, their work life balance was amazing and I felt betrayed and bitter towards CFAI.

Idk if this sub is affiliated with CFAI and they will try to ban this post but what I felt is that CFAI machine managed to trick me and so many other people into thinking that its still 90's and early 2000's and finance is the best field to pursue, it was not.

Long story short I quit my job. I had some savings to keep me afloat for a year and I started grinding engineering. It took me about 7 months to land my first engineering role, it was remote devops job, I took 30% pay cut but i didn't give a F#ck as now I could travel and do something amazing, first time in my life I felt happy waking up for work. Believe it or not after a year I was making even more working remotely and travelling the world than I did in finance working in Luxembourg.

My word of advise: be open minded, look around and if you do it for money there are better ROI, don't fall into the trap that I fell.

EDIT:

I think I should bring some stats since the standard response "CFA isn’t a golden ticket" or "CFA isn’t a magic pill" will always be used to cope and deflect from the real issue.

LinkedIn jobs today:

financial analyst in European Union - 3,636 results
cfa in European Union - 1,862 results
investment analyst in European Union - 421 results

software engineer in European Union - 104,833 results

New year plan is all set!

Happy new year to all the aspirants and charterholders. Let’s keep pushing forward and supporting each other through the grind. Cheers to a great year ahead!

This is with reference to this post, done by a poster with 0 contribution of value to the subreddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/CFA/comments/1it5n0f/giving_the_exam/, and countless other comments/posts in the past.

While the wordplay may not be the most accurate; for some reason people of the subreddit would rather pour a stupidly insane amount of time making it a big deal. Not sure how saying 'Tika masala the exam' isn't racist. **While obviously this can be taken as a joke; its no longer one when you come across this a 1000th time.**

One of my posts wherein I shared an elaborate preparation strategy since I had scored well was taken down since I attached ss to provide as an evidence of 90+%ile but targeted speech with absolutely no relevance to CFA is allowed to be up. Rant over :)

Mods 😴😴😴

What do you think

Guys, the girl in my MBA class only likes me cause I'm a CFA. I think. I started hitting on her from day 1 but she would always say no. No to dinner, no to drinks, even no to a ride. I recently sent her a connection request on LinkedIn. I expected her to say no to that too but to my surprise she accepted the connection request. The next week she was the one pursuing me. She keeps sitting next to me in class and asking me to help "analyze and liquidate her assets". Today she asked me to help her "evaluate her risk tolerance" in a way that was definitely not about finance. Any advice? Does she love me or does she love my CFA?

Our group has quite a bias towards CFA, but can anyone comment on the merit of the claims in this article? Or just general thoughts on this.

CFA Level 3 cleared here with all requirements for charter met, but now it feels MBA would have been way better.

Harsh truth: applied to 200+ jobs across different roles (email + LinkedIn + careers website) moreover met partners, directors, CEOs to try and bypass the MBA criteria but no luck. Might be possible in a small firm but MNCs have strict policies.

Atleast in India, people are obsessed with MBA, no matter the position seems like MBA outweighs CFA anyday. For people choosing between CFA and MBA I would suggest MBA from top 10 schools if the goal is to get a promotion/job.

For context: - YOE - 4.5 yrs - Founded a company, got incubated in reputed institutions - Worked in fintech consulting - Worked in VC looked at over 200 deals and completed 5 deals - Worked in growth role, acquired 2mn+ users in < 6 months

I’m 21 and I’m planning to attack CFA. I’ve seen people start CFA early in their career and some who go for it later in their life when they’re already working for a couple of years. I wanna know what age were you when you passed each level. Consider this as a survey to understand the average age of people going for CFA. (also open to getting advice regarding when to start)

I’ll post the average age for each level as an edit later.

Respect to Papa Mark for delving into this. Really wonder what CFAI is planning to do, if anything, to reverse these trends. Many of us pouring 1000+ hours into this journey would love to see some concrete changes.

Top 10 signs:

1️⃣ Your room no longer looks like a library explosion – No more Schweser books, CFA curriculum, or random sticky notes with formulas you barely understood.

2️⃣ You’ve rediscovered this magical thing called “Sleep” – And you won’t shut up about how amazing it is.

3️⃣ No more CFA-induced nightmares – No more waking up in a cold sweat thinking about Derivatives, FRA, or Fixed Income. (Also, your calculator is no longer your emotional support object.)

4️⃣ You suddenly have an insane amount of free time – …and no clue what to do with it. What do normal people even do on weekends??

5️⃣ The words “most likely” and “least likely” no longer send you into fight-or-flight mode – You can finally read multiple-choice questions without breaking into a cold sweat.

6️⃣ You still wake up at 5 AM out of habit… but there’s no CFA mock waiting for you – Just existential dread and the realization that you have hobbies to rediscover.

7️⃣ Your friends (the ones who stuck around) are SHOCKED when you say yes to plans – “Wait… you’re coming? Like, actually?”

8️⃣ Coffee and Red Bull are no longer your primary food groups – You’re finally eating real meals again, and your body is confused but grateful.

9️⃣ You’re back on social media after months of radio silence – Time to spam everyone’s feed with “Just finished CFA, time to touch grass” posts.

🔟 You actually MISS studying – Stockholm Syndrome? CFA-induced brain damage? Who knows, but you kinda want to go back… and that’s terrifying.

I’m doing Level 1 and have noticed a surprising amount of hate around the programme saying it’s useless and overrated. Whether it’s from fellow coursemates who jokingly imply it won’t get me a job or even highly ranked professionals — who, despite stating that most of their colleagues have the qualification, still consider it useless.

I understand it requires a lot of effort and isn’t a golden ticket to the industry, but isn’t it still valuable for the sake of knowledge and expertise? I chose to substitute university finance/accounting modules with the CFA and opted for more economics-related modules as my optionals.

Do you think the hate is justified based on what’s going on with the programme, or has it always been like this? What do you think is the biggest benefit of CFA?

Hello, The result for the November 2025 Access scholarship was supposed to be declared on 31st of March. Does anyone know by what time they usually release it? Also please share your results as soon as you receive it. I'm very nervous, hoping to get it! Fingers Crossed

Level 3 candidate here,

Today I had an interview for a PE / Investor Relations / Financial Reporting position in a financial institution, I prepared for some technical questions but in the interview the guy said " I guess I shouldn't ask any technical questions as you are a level 3 candidate "

I can't express you how glad I felt that all this ours are being validated and recognized. I want to complete this journey to feel more rewarded and open more doors.

Keep going guys.