CAREER ADVISOR

“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to the following :
“I am a Commerce graduate and have already passed level 1 of the CFA certification, what should I do to gain the necessary experience? “
All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to advisor@skill-link.com - would be addressed in this section every week.

Q: : I have already passed level 1 of the CFA certification, what should I do to gain the necessary experience?

I graduated from the Faculty of Commerce (English Section) at Ain Shams University in 2000 with a general grade Very Good. I then started studying for the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification program at the American University in Cairo. I passed Level 1 this year from the first time.I'm still worried about my career since I have to cover three years of experience in order to be awarded the CFA designation as required my the AIMR ( Association of Investment Management and Research).So please what shall I do to gain the required experience?

Y. M. (Egypt).

Replying
Dear Mr. Y.

Your inquiry did not reveal if you are currently employed and if yes, then doing what. The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification is a useful one and highly regarded for employment in areas such as investment banking, asset management and treasury.

However this is not enough, since at the end of the day it is theoretical. It will only be of significance if supplemented by on the job experience in the Capital Market sector. For example by being employed in the research unit of a reputable brokerage firm (such as EFG Hermes, PRIME, HSBC, CIBC), as a junior consultant in a Corporate Finance firm (such as FinRate Consulting, HC Investments, Capex) or an asset management company (such as EFG Hermes, Concord, Investia).

Now getting into one of those in the current times will be a real challenge; Egypt is witnessing a very slow economy and prices / trading in the stock market is at record lows. Therefore most of the companies working in this sector (brokers, fund managers, financial consultants etc…) are keeping very tight budgets and restricting hiring to the bear minimum. It does not stop you from trying.

While you are attempting the above; you should invest time in closely following the Egyptian stock market and thoroughly going through the research being produced on the various stocks. Such research offers a good insight, it could be obtained from various large brokers (often by email - in pdf format); also there are some who have interesting web sites, such as Sigma, EFG Hermes. Other financial portals may offer good references to, eg: Zawya.com and MENAfn.com.

Good Luck.

Note from the editor: 
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality

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