Colorado, from a New Yorker's point of view

I have a meeting with a head hunter tomorrow.  Which is good for my ego, at least somebody wants me.  I mostly consider head hunters to be useless.  I actually had one ask me if I had heard of the company I used to work for.  They were trying to back fill my position.

“You have my resume in front of you right?  That is how you got my number?  Look about a third of the way down.  Notice anything unusual?  Yeah, I worked for that company.  What else you got?”  Is it wrong to expect a recruiter to spend a minute reading my resume before contacting me?

Maybe they are not all useless.  I’m saying this in part because I’m hoping my meeting tomorrow is successful.

I applied for two Senior Financial Analyst jobs that this recruiter is looking to fill.  The first of which pays extremely well.  So ridiculously well that I had to wonder what they expect from a position that requires them to pay 30-50% more than most other similarly titled jobs.  I was hoping it was something simple like keeping two sets of books, or being able to operate a paper shredder.  My instinct tells me the only reason they pay so well is that they expect you to do the work of two people.  I applied for the second job because it required no extra effort.

Within two hours of applying I got a call from the recruiter.  The company looking to fill the first position is looking for a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with about 10-15 years of experience.  The CFA certification is the pinnacle of  financial designations.  If you want to be a trader, or run a mutual fund this is the certification for you.

It is one of the hardest certifications to obtain.  There are way fewer CFA’s than MD’s, CPA or lawyers in the country.  It is the financial equivalent of a neurosurgeon.    Almost anyone can be a general practitioner, just like any idiot like myself can be a financial analyst.  But to be neurosurgeon or CFA…well that’s impressive stuff.

One of my Grad school professors was a CFA.  He barley spoke English, but he was a math whiz.  Rumor had it that it he gave everyone A’s so they wouldn’t complain about his poor English.  The only thing I really remember from the class were his tirades against casinos.  It seems he was frequently getting himself tossed out for counting cards.  There is nothing like a nerdy Chinese guy coming into class on a Monday and bitching in broken English about getting booted from yet another casino over the weekend.

I tend to agree with him.  If you are skilled enough in math to count cards and run probabilities in your head you shouldn’t get tossed.  Hopefully you can be suave enough to pull it off discretely.  But regardless maybe allowing it would inspire some American students to be better in math.

Back to tomorrow’s meeting.  Without a CFA certification the first position is off the table.  Which is okay because if I had a CFA certification, the position would need to pay substantially more to spark my interest.  The second position seems to be a typical senior analyst role.

Wish me luck.