CFA designation can only be used if you have worked in a relevant industry for a certain number of years.

If your finance industry is on banking, then the fresh grad pay is close to 3k or more. But if you are talking about back office finance, that's a different story.

I might have stated somewhere about front office and back office before. You should really have a very clear understanding about this before applying for any job positions. The reason why im doubting you is because you're talking about CFA and Finance controller job as if they are similar in nature.

This post has been edited by fletcherwind: Jan 9 2010, 10:00 PM

Ppl who do CFA are usually people in the Investment Banking/Asset Management/Stock Brokering/Private Equity/Hedge Fund industry. My list is not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive. The syllabus in CFA is more relevant in here.

The people who are involved in the departments that bring in Revenue to the companies are called front office. Departments which support the firms operations but are generally cost centers are back office departments or middle office departments.

So, in an investment bank for example, corporate finance is front office but finance for group reporting or financial reporting is back office. Finance is just a very loosely used term. Financial controllers are reponsible to support the operations in a company, they are not involved in bringing in Revenue, hence they are working in a back office function. Corporate Finance Analysts help execute M&A/IPO deals and they earn fees from their clients, hence they are in the front office function.

This is just a very quick reply. You can find out more online on what you are intersted in and what's the right professional paper. Wiki is surprisingly helpful. You would really want to know more of the industry and the job that you want before you embark on your career.