Hey, I came across the BAT a couple of days ago and was surprised I hadn’t heard about it before, least not on analystforum.
Anyone taken it? They offer it for free and if the sample questions are anything to go by it has a distinct familiarity with the CFA exam.
Could it be a potential challenger to the CFA in the future? Or perhaps just another signal to employers to help us land the job we want?
According to a some sites it’s proving useful.
What do you guys think?
Useful yes, but it’s got a long ways to go before it’ll hold anything near the weight of a professional designation from what I’ve seen
its a gimmick. the Bloomberg terminal is not brain science. yes there are commands and functions most people in any specific role will never use but after a few hours of practical hands on use, you know enough to get around. the only relevant training required is someone who knows more to show you some “tricks”. the excel addin is very straight forward.
All it is is a DOS prompt, I don’t see why you need a certification for it??
Based on the examples I’ve seen, the test doesn’t appear to measure Bloomberg Professional sufficiency. It is rather just another exam of entry level knowledge. I have heard it compared to as a combination of the CFA Level I and GMAT. That assessment appears to be failry accurate.
@dvictr and bpdulog - While the name may be misleading this is not a Bloomberg terminal certification!
It’s a test that, in their own words is “Used by top employers to find best-fit talent”. if you click through on the links above it seems a lot of people are finding it useful, and getting job interviews from it… My take is it’s prob most useful for soon to be graduating students and peeps moving into the industry from other career paths.
tyler4040, well put - it does seem like that. It’s free so if you have the smarts and the time I can’t see much of a downside.
The only really useful bloomberg tool, is the bloomberg api in excel. That takes a few tries, but it’s not too bad once you get the bdh, bdp format down.
Took it in my undergrad.
This is not a test about how to use the Bloomberg Terminal, it tests similar knowledge to the CFA.
Sections include: Economics, Financial Statement Reporting & Analysis, Valuation, Corporate Finance & Advisory, Capital Markets Issuance/Syndication, Global Markets, Investment Management, Verbal Skills, Math Skills, Situational Judgement, Ethical Reasoning, Tasks.
I thought it seemed like a good way to assess the knowledge of undergrads, and enjoyed the feedback on my standing vs. other students.
Took it and found it was harder than cfa l1, same width but more depth. I scored in the 99th percentile but don’t think it helps anything in terms of job hunting.
You can study this in 2 parts:
1st day Analytical reasoning, exam strategy, investment banking part 1, Quant, reading comprehension, chart of the day, Bloomberg terminal, News, federal reserve.
2nd day remaining areas.
They offered it at my university when it initially took off. It was pretty interesting coz it gave us a feedback on our strengths… Esp since we sat for it without any prior knowledge about what was going to be tested. They apparently allow employers to contact you on the basis of those results…