Career conversations: Never underestimate your abilities

I felt I needed more of a challenge and change career and moving into a more financial economic-centered position, which is why I was attracted by the CFA® Program. My name is Rudy Soobaroyen. I'm a compliance analyst and I'm a CFA® Charterholder.

Going back to high school, I was always told that accounting was a very interesting field to go into and particularly that it is very rewarding in terms of career and opportunities. I was always interested in understanding the macroeconomic environment because for me, to be able to understand investment, you first need to understand what is the economic environment and how things evolve around the economy.

When I was studying for my accounting designations, I realized that there was a gap in terms of trying to understand why decisions were being made. So when I went into my CFA Program, I immediately felt that I was getting heavily involved into understanding the economy more so around monetary policies and fiscal policies and how these actually impact financial markets.

It doesn't matter which asset class we would be talking about, but from the moment that you do understand how an economy operates, you can actually value any type of asset class.

I feel that my role within the government is much more important because I do contribute to the life of everyday Australians. With regards to policy work, everything goes extremely fast in the formulation of policies. We need to understand, first of all, like I mentioned, about the economy and understanding how financial markets work. And the CFA Program did equip me with all of that and understanding more importantly the ethics that surround the financial markets and the economy.

So, all of this impounded into a knowledge that actually assists me in better helping the government with coming up with policies that support the country. So I was able to balance the demands of the program by being very disciplined in. in the way I was preparing myself.

I still remember back in the days I was sitting on the train and taking the time to read for my notes and every single opportunity that I would have, I would actually go for my notes.

It was extremely interesting to see how I was able to manage my family time with this, and also being able to work. Prior to undertaking the CFA Program, I always had a set of boundaries, thinking that my skills and knowledge were very limited.  

However, with the CFA Program, I actually went beyond my boundaries. So a life lesson that I got out of the CFA® Institute through the CFA Program, is that I should never underestimate my abilities. It's a long journey, but it's a fantastic journey at the end of it.  

There's so much that you will get in terms of being able to explore so many different avenues in finance. There are so many opportunities that are out there.