We approached a senior equities dealer in a major bank in Pakistan. He is a CFA charterholder and ASA. As part of general comments he told us the following things:
Get in the industry before completing all three levels of CFA as this industry is more about experience and skills.”
“If given a choice between CFA level 3 passed candidate with no experience or CFA level 1 candidate with 1 year of industry experience, I would go for latter option”
“While hiring, I give more value to good modelling skills and experience”
“I would not recommend students to clear all the three levels of CFA without any experience. They become over qualified with this. They should focus more on getting good experience”
“I appeared in my CFA level 1 exam after having 5 years of industry experience”.
Hope these comments and the comments of other seniors in the local industry benefit you in taking your career decisions.