How crucial is being an excel whiz

It's good to know beforehand, but I'm sure you'll get the necessary training anyway, no more and no less. If you went in as an expert, you might know a few more tricks than those with no background, but it shouldn't make a huge difference as you start working. Just my opinion. I'm not in IB, so I can't speak from experience. Just intuition.

Be good enough that you don't need to use a mouse unless you are doing something very function heavy (i.e make friends with the "Alt" key.) Be comfortable with all the formatting stuff (e.g. Merge Cells, Wrap Text, Outlining, etc.) and always be on the lookout for new tricks, everybody you meet in finance knows at least a few things you haven't seen before. The most important thing to me when working with someone straight from school is that they know that; 1)balance sheets should balance and 2) what drives the various changes in financial statements which create or destroy value. I remember in one of my interviews a VP stressed the value of creating "flexible" models. I had no idea what he meant at the time, but you will learn the importance of this quickly.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO AS AN ANALYST IS TO TRIPLE CHECK YOUR #'S!!!!!!!

Oh, if you are feeling particulary inspired before you start working gain mastery over v & h lookups, all the time value functions, and the sumif function.

What are some good resources (books/site etc.) for these basic excel skills?

How about getting the Microsoft excel certification...?

I got the certification once up upon a time, and I don't think it's worth it. It's not difficult and I don't think it would impress too many potential employers.

John Walkenbach makes excellent books about using Excel- ranging from Basic to Advanced.

Skill level also depends on your function in the bank. In IBD, for instance, formatting is huge, while the quant portion of the models isn't really all the complex. In S&T, on the other hand, the formatting isn't anywhere nearly as big of a deal, but the models will be much more complex from a mathmatical point of view.

before i started working, i sucked at excel. once i started though, i forced myself to learn all the short cuts and to live without the mouse. once you do that for a week, i think you are pretty set.

my advice is, get to know the F2 key well, because you will be hitting that key more than you hit some girl you pick up at the bar. unplug your mouse if you need to, just know all the short cuts well. it will save you a lot of times down the road.

I doubt anyone is going to ask you to describe a VLOOKUP in an interview, if you are smart enough to get the job you are smart enough to pick up the Excel you need without too much trouble.

Back to the original post: captain and the king are right on. You should understand what a flexible model means and the intuition behind making one. You don't have to know an LBO model backwards and forewards before you start training, but you should know some of the math, financial, and logical (IF and the LOOKUP's are key) functions, and how to set up a spreadsheet such that you can enter changes to certain assumption cells and the calculations/valuations will correct themselves.

As for the shortcuts, I'd recommend trying to familiarize yourself with some of them going in- just to save youself some time later on. If you have homework to do before training starts it might be worth taking a little extra time and doing the work in excel.