++TI BAII+ caculator certificate++ Hysterical. I literally laughed out loud on this. The equivalent in law would be that you know how to use Westlaw. LOL
But you guys would be from the field, right? I am from this crappy IT background so even the BBerg Equity and Fixed Income certs should look good. If nothing at all, atleast, it shows my zeal and passion towards the field, no? But that BA2 Plus joke was too funny… still laughing!
You can still say you are certified. Just watch the videos on the Terminal. I passed the exams about a year ago and they were supposed to send me the actual certificate in August of last year. A year later I still haven’t heard from them.
It doesn’t do anything for me when I see “Bloomberg certification” in the skills section of a resume. To me it’s the same as when people put “Microsoft Office suite” or “Powerpoint” or whatever. I assume that anyone who meets my other hiring criteria knows this stuff or is capable of learning it rapidly, it’s not a differentiating skill. I’m not trying to put anyone down or discourage someone from pursuing knowledge - if you think learning how to use Bloomberg will make you a better analyst or improve your understanding of the investment process, then go ahead and do it. But don’t do it because you think it’s the key to a magical kingdom. Seriously, there are zero people in the history of finance who have been pushed out of the industry because they couldn’t figure out how to use a Bloomberg. That guy is a billionaire because *everyone* finds it easy to use. And stuff that everyone can do doesn’t make a resume stand out.
If I were trying to decide between hiring two equal candidates, but one had Bloomberg Certification on his/her resume…I would choose the candidate without the certification.
Thanks guys for the feedback. I will try learning to use the terminal if at all I get a chance to sit on it ever. At my company I am nowhere close to it.
I took the certification whilst working in IT trying to get a job in the Front Office. It can actually be quite a useful thing to do if you have no experience. It doenst just tell you how to navigate the system it aso gives you a good idea of how analysts start to look at a security. This is especially useful in learning some of the basic induytry comparison metrics. I mentioned it very briefly on my resume under programming skills e.g. Unix / Reuters PP Pro / Bloomberg / VBA / .Net. I actually got asked asbout it by a hedge fund manager and when I told him I understood the fee structure and saved the trading desk I was on 3 grand a month by monitoring what real time data they were using he seemed to like it. There are also certain thing (such as programming the API) which are acutally quite complex and can be very useful to learn. Being able to respond to the question “so do you invest yourself?” with reference to the fact that you have designed a realtime protfolio monitor in a spreadsheet with various customised risk metrics can work well in an interview. It totally depends on how your CV is strctured. Of course if you put it in your education section it would look out of place but having a brief mention of it is valid I think. This is especially true if you have no experience as it shows you are keen to learn. Would you rather have someone come in and spend the first few lunch breaks messing around with Bloomi or show you some things you didnt know? Ive actually spent a fair amount of time in my new role helpong the guys on my desk to set up an automated pnl spreadhseet. This calculates daily implied options volatility, pulls down end of day prices and then connects to our internal trading system to find descrepancies. Im constantly asked about Bloomi now as they have realised it can do a whole lot more than they initally thought. I think stating that you would not hire someone based on the fact that they have taken the intiative to look a bit deeper into a technical tool that costs 1700 per month because you have decided that it is a basic tool that anyone should be able to use is a bit closed minded.
Thanks algo-rhythm! It was so soothing to hear that BBerg study atleast helped someone in the industry. I would really love to know about how to use it, but the termianl is just a remote dream now.
do you work on a trade floor? might be worth asking someone if you can use theirs after the close each evening for a month…
nopes, nowhere close to it. And the company does not bother much about us consultants anyway.
Dinesh, I say get the Bloomberg Certification. Since you don’t use a terminal at work, it would be good to get some experience.
I would surely love to do it mate! - But I don’t know how to solve this chicken or the egg mistery with this bloomberg terminal?