Should You Take the CFA Program

A suitability decision before you spend years, money, and attention

Historically, a useful rule of thumb was five people start the CFA Program for every one who finishes. Today, in some cities, it feels closer to seven, even ten, to one. This is difficult work, sustained over years, with a failure rate that punishes casual intent.

This service is for employees with full-time jobs. It is not for university students. University students usually have academic structure and access to advisors and faculty. Employees rarely have that scaffolding. They register, buy the books, and try to bolt Level I onto an already crowded life.

Good intentions rarely survive what the CFA Program actually demands: a long season of ordinary evenings. Not dramatic sacrifice, just repeated, tired weeknights. Or intensive study sessions over months of lonely weekends. After full workdays, when energy is low and there is no external referee, the plan either has structure or it dissolves.

What typically erodes intention:

  • Energy drops before discipline arrives. Early enthusiasm fades; fatigue, commute, deadlines, travel, and family demands accumulate.

  • No external referee. No class, no weekly quiz, no professor. Skipping a night has no immediate consequence, until it quietly becomes a pattern.

  • Comfort wins by default. After a day of decisions, the mind reaches for low-friction rewards. CFA study is high-friction work with delayed payoff.

  • A missed week becomes a narrative. “I’m behind” turns into avoidance, then into identity: “I’m not someone who finishes.”

  • Isolation. Without accountability, the work becomes private, negotiable, and easy to postpone.

  • No recovery plan. One disrupted week can cascade because there is no defined method to restart without panic or overcompensation.

The CFA credential myth

Many people believe the CFA designation will open doors. Sometimes it does. More often, it amplifies doors that are already partly open.

In practice, many candidates are already working in or near investments, and the credential helps level a playing field: it signals seriousness, competence, and endurance. On its own, it rarely substitutes for role fit, relationships, and demonstrable work. That gap is where regret lives: people earn the credential and their careers look materially unchanged, after a very large cost.

The part many people miss

Many candidates don’t realize that passing the exams is not the full story. To actually use the CFA designation, CFA Institute also requires at least 4,000 hours of relevant work experience completed over a minimum of 36 months, and the work needs to be directly related to the investment decision-making process (or producing work that informs it). 

That matters for suitability. If your plan is “I’ll do CFA first, and then figure out the industry later,” you may be committing to years of study without a clear path to the underlying work requirement.

What the CFA is really for

At its core, the CFA Program is designed to advance investment careers, with deep focus on investment analysis and portfolio management.  Charterholders do work across buy-side, sell-side, corporate, and advisory roles, but the most direct payoff tends to show up where someone is accountable for investment decisions and outcomes, often in buy-side contexts. 

If you have no intention of moving toward investment decision-making work, and especially if you have no interest in the kind of client-facing or decision-accountable career that frequently comes with it, that already says something important about suitability.

A common detour

There is a story I hear repeatedly from full-time employees: they register for Level I, discover they cannot cope without university-like structure, and then pivot into a very expensive MBA program as a substitute for external accountability. I’ve heard versions of this many times from people connected to University of Toronto / Rotman, for example. It’s not an argument against MBAs. It’s a reminder that the real constraint is often not intelligence, but structure, time, and a sustainable system.

What we examine

This is not prep. It is a structured conversation most people never have.

We cover the groundwork:

  • what you actually want from the next three to five years

  • where the CFA truly helps in your target roles, and where it does not

  • whether your schedule, temperament, and life constraints support finishing

  • the opportunity cost: what this will displace, delay, or distort

  • your likely failure modes: drift, deferral, isolation, and weak recovery after missed weeks

  • whether you have (or can realistically build) a path toward the work experience requirement 

We can also discuss alternatives: CFA-adjacent credentials, smaller “warm-up” commitments to test follow-through, or a different path entirely if that better matches your aims.

How it works

This decision rarely benefits from a single conversation. It benefits from a pause.

1) Initial session

We do the deep questioning and map the trade-offs.

2) Time to think

You step away. You gather feedback from people around you. You notice what you feel relieved by and what you resist.

3) Return discussion

We pressure-test the decision, address objections, and either commit to a plan or walk away cleanly.

Time and budget

Most people budget 2 to 4 hours in total, typically split across two meetings with a thinking interval in between.

Outcome

A decision you can defend without noise: proceed with purpose, pause with a clear condition, or decline with relief and a better alternative in view.