As everyone knows being proficient in excel and financial modeling is a very important part of a finance career. I’m sure majority of people list “advanced excel” on there resume in some way or anyother. My question is, for someone who is decent but no a magician with excel what can they do to get better?
Obviously hands on work experience is probably best but if you don’t have that opportunnity what books or courses are worth while?
I guess there are two courses which are offered for financial modeling and is know the best in class is wal street prep and second one is breaking the walstreet. both of them gives you certificates also which will add value to your resume.
all the best
On the first day of my finance analyst internship (in industry albeit, not a bank) I was given a big financial model that I needed to review by the end of the week. I then went through it tab by tab, row by row, and saw how the whole thing worked.
I think taking a completed well built model and running through it can be very good.
I think you’re talking about two different skillsets. One pertains to the content of the model (e.g., coming up with pro forma financial statements by projecting revenue and expenses into the future under a specific set of assumptions). The other pertains to being a proficient user of excel such that you’re able to implement all of the content of your model in a clear way. Knowing excel shortcuts and VBA won’t help you with the content of your model.
Training the Street is something all investment banking programs use. They should have some online courses for you.
Apparently I’m good at this nerdy stuff, over the years CFOs and IBers have commented on my models. If there is a “secret ingredient” that differentiates people I would say it is LOGIC and basic common fu%#ing sense! There are so many seriously over-complicated financial models, that when dug into, don’t make any sense at all. And when you revisit them years later, their forecasts were of course totally wrong. It’s all show off, no substance. What matters is being right , that’s what you want your analyst to be good at, because that’s what makes money. And that’s more about thinking skills than the Excel. You can make a model that makes fu@# tons of sense with basic Excel.