Career conversations: Every day is a learning opportunity

I like to be my authentic self, I don't like to fit a box.  For me, it's very important to show my best version of myself as my authentic self and I think it's important for anyone working in the industry that you bring up new ideas and you're creative enough to bring value to your team. This is Urmi Hossain and I work as an Investment Associate.

I would say that the transitioning from university to my work field was pretty smooth. Even though initially it was a bit hard because I would get rejected from a lot of workplaces. And then eventually I found an internship for an investment management company.  

The CFA® Program has been really beneficial for me and for my day-to-day job, and one example that I can give you is that I get to do, on a daily basis, is portfolio rebalancing and educating your client on behavioral finance.

I actually see my day to day as a learning opportunity. On a weekly basis, we receive trainings as well as completion of further designation to strengthen our knowledge. And one that I have found most valuable is through mentoring. I got to meet different people within the company that has helped me a lot to grow.  

I use a lot of strategies when it came to studying for the CFA Program and one of them was to start early. I dedicated, I would say at least 6 to 9 months of preparation. I was very disciplined, I use Google Calendar to manage my time effectively and also I continuously practiced. Those were my techniques to pass all the CFA® Exams.  

My CFA Exams got postponed multiple times, especially for the Level II because of what happened in the world. One thing that kept me motivated was visualization technique. So I used to create a lot of vision boards and one of the board had basically the CFA logo. So every time I was demotivated, every time I was upset, I would always go back to this. My main motivation, my why, and that's how I would basically go back on track and keep my enthusiasm.

And I would say one way to deal with it is see this as an opportunity to learn. So don't see this as something negative, but turn that negativity into positivity.  

As women are eager to work in finance and to grow in the corporate ladder, so we just need employers to invest their time in us. In order to pursue more women in finance and start a career in finance. I think one thing that I would do is to introduce finance courses or personal finance courses in the education system. And I think we need to start from early on. Educating women and finance is all around us and we need that in our daily life.