VBA for Excel, Useful or a waste of my time?

Hey boys,

I am a senior at a non-target and I just received an offer from a well-known middle market. Very excited about the offer. Now my focus is standing out amongst my analyst class. In school I took a CS class which taught me some basic VBA for excel. I am wondering if you guys think it would be an utter waste of time if I went ahead and continued to learn VBA for banking? I am shooting to become an "excel jockey" (to quote an MD at a top firm) but don't want to waste my time focusing on less important material.

Comments Appreciated

 
Best Response

Just so you know, the kid who knows VBA is known as the kid who knows VBA. Might sound dumb, but people will soon figure out your the VBA or Excel Wiz. It is a unique skill in IB (among analyst classes), especially when you get the non CS kids who don't know how to do it.

This can be good and bad. You may get a bunch of boring excel work that no one else can do, which may hinder your ability to work on other projects, but will also make a number of people dependent upon you. When people become dependable on you, they tend to want to keep you around.

Just my two cents

 

This.

Office_Farva:

Just so you know, the kid who knows VBA is known as the kid who knows VBA. Might sound dumb, but people will soon figure out your the VBA or Excel Wiz. It is a unique skill in IB (among analyst classes), especially when you get the non CS kids who don't know how to do it.

This can be good and bad. You may get a bunch of boring excel work that no one else can do, which may hinder your ability to work on other projects, but will also make a number of people dependent upon you. When people become dependable on you, they tend to want to keep you around.

Just my two cents

 

Being able to automate processes through VBA has been a huge advantage for me personally. In my current role VBA allows me tackle complex problems and eliminate mundane tasks leaving more time for actual analysis. Of course its usefulness varies by position and company but overall I think it is good to know and can definitely help you get a job in corporate finance.

I interviewed at a number of companies before accepting the position I'm in now and 90% of them were extremely interested in my VBA capabilities.

 

The models I build are too heavy to run sensitivies manually and so I need to run macros in excel. I learned how to program C++ in school but not VBA. As a result, I can follow the logic of the code, but I can't write it. I'm forced to do a lot of copy pasting from other models and forums - knowing VBA would definitely speed up my work!

Double Doubler
 

For any programming language I have learned, I found it best to learn it by doing something you are interested in. Otherwise, you will get bored very quickly. So if it were me, I would jump into financial modelling. Google the basics that you don't know when you come across them.

"Money doesn't talk, it swears." -Bob Dylan
 

VBA is very useful. Many datasets used in financial applications are exported into Excel, as well as many other datasets. It's funny because you learn more stuff like C#/Java/Python in school for computer science, but once I started working I found that VBA can be used extensively. Being able to write macros to automate things or do things with data that your group may need is invaluable. Though it's debatable, I firmly believe VBA has probably the most applicability in work than any other language. You may work with APIs in C# or some other object-oriented language, but Excel is used by so many people for so many things....it is just the most basically practical and used UNLESS you are going into a true application development role. Besides, VBA is great to learn because it's easier and more narrow than many other languages.

 

Can you expand on your MDs hating it? I've used VBA for a while and it's a great tool for increasing efficiency. I'm just trying to understand what they hate? Is it the code, the time it takes to code, or just the use of it in general? Thanks

 

The comment on MDs (+ many others who aren't proficient in VBA) hating it is probably because unless your VBA skills are good enough to understand the macro, it's "unauditable". Harder to modify, troubleshoot, hence pass on to others, whatever.

You can get/build some really good models without VBA so I'd say avoid it. I took an intensive VBA course and haven't used the shit. Recording can be useful for things as dumb as a shortcut to an input/summary page if you have a ridiculous number of pages in your file (can be easier than Ctrl+pagedown times 15).

If you have time for a VBA course and want to improve on Excel, you'd better spend that time practicing the formulas and keyboard shortcuts.

As for xls vs ppt... I say xls, that's the tool you use to justify the $$$. Formatting is outsourced or for interns.

 

Last time I was here, I did write something in response to this. Now it's gone.....

Anyway, along the lines of being happy that VBA isn't a skill that's needed. I have a basic understand of what it can do, but I certainly can't do anything with it.

Excel and powerpoint (I will be an intern), and keyboard short-cuts will be good to learn better then.

I use a Mac at home, so does anybody have a short list of the most useful PC keyboard short-cuts? (maybe this should be a new thread, eh?)

 

A new thread's a good idea, but I'll let you take care of that if you want to ask for a list of people's favourite tricks.

Google for shortcuts as well as tutorials on financial modelling, you'll find loads. I think you can even get a list of shortcuts from the microsoft website, but practicing on a Mac may not be that easy (I know nothing about Macs). Apart from that, on MS Office hold down "Alt" and a whole new world opens up to you (saddest sentence I've ever written) - you can then select different streams of letters for different actions.

 

When I was an intern is was a great help, I managed to reduce a couple of days admin work into a few clicks - no one else on my desk knew VBA (mind u it was origination..... start mocking!) beyond recording macros and were amazed - it became a big factor in me getting a f/t offer elsewhere in the firm.

 

Certainly anything like VBA is useful if you're very good at it and can use it solve a variety of problems, and you can reduce everyone's workload with various codes. However, without a good knowledge, nobody would be too impressed with being able to generic little bits of code that just make things difficult to update/audit. That seems to be what I've gathered from this thread. So, unless I can find time to really master it, I probably won't even try (there are better things to be studying).

 

depending on the analysis you do, it can really come in handy. i use it for running different scenarios without having to use data tables, which slow things down quite a bit

 

I've used VBA to help run multiple scenarios through a model and to fill out data tables. The issue is that it can't be easily audited by your seniors if they're not proficient. Thus I'd avoid using to make calculations. It's good for driving a model for multiple inputs as a time saving measure, though.

I'd suggest having a basic grasp of VBA, so you have an understanding of what it can and can't do, but I don't think it's worth spending a great deal of time learning it.

 

Is it required as a part of my job? No. Does it make me many times more efficient and allow me to do certain analyses that would have otherwise been impossible? The answers is most unequivocally yes. I'm reasonably efficient at VBA now after teaching myself over the last few months and I'm already starting to realize the limitations of excel and starting to learn Matlab. I use VBA at least once a day now just to make my life easier.

(a few months ago I had zero CS background and was probably just as baffled as you are)

 
Nabooru:

I use VBA to write custom keyboard shortcuts that are mostly related to formatting. Stuff like color / style toggles or borders.

Wouldn't it just be simpler to create a macro? Without having to use a VBA code?

 

I've heard from friends at Goldman it is a huge time saver if you are knowledgeable enough

Benjamin A Gilman Scholar Economics & Finance, Mandarin Chinese & Japanese Small Business VP
 

Here's a link I found that's really helping me get a better grasp of VBA. They also have tutorials for other languages and even have some excel if anyone is wanting to brush up on that. It's all really straightforward material that's easy to digest.

http://www.homeandlearn.org/index.html

Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.
 
Alpha-Resistant:

In all seriousness I've found trial and error combined with google searches to be the most effective VBA teacher.

This. Think of a task that people around on your floor spend a lot of time on in excel - creating charts, formatting things, creating datatapes, consolidating numbers, creating and using financial analysis templates. Then try to optimize the task using VBA. In general VBA is useful is with big data with a well framed data structure. IBD has cell-cell level adjustments so running macros on that is pointless.

 

If you're working in markets as in sales/trading, your VBA skills are beyond those of most IBD analysts.

Look- programming/algorithms skills have never hurt anyone, but in banking, they are a little less important than in S&T or research. How complicated can the models really get? It's not like you're going to have to do some complicated caching or producer-consumer software design models to handle everything. I say focus on people skills and sales abilities if you're going into M&A or Commercial Banking.

 

Thx programmer, I was thinking the along the same lines. I am in DCM so not a trader. I do genuinely believe that if you manage to pass the " grunt work " phase it all comes down to you people and sales skills.

I was just wondering whether such a move is possible, I do not have stellar academics as per say , but I got relevant experience !!

Maybe I do not have quotes under my name on google, but I KEEP IT REAL
 

I know this is a bit off topic but you said your an analyst for markets. I'm assuming you mean global markets. I am at the second stage of recruitment for an analyst job with GM and was wondering if they're paid the same as M&A.

 

I think at analyst level all pay the same (by analyst i mean either graduate program or internship ). Going forward you will find loads of threads in here with much more info about this. For me I had to get my foot in the door some how and somewhere so my contract and the money i get is really bad !! , I accepted though due to of other factors

Good luck with your interview though

Maybe I do not have quotes under my name on google, but I KEEP IT REAL
 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 

need macros, but there are times with big models that they can be helpful (90% of analysts never/rarely learn or use them). In certain other divisions such as structured products, more complex groups within S&T that don't need actual programming, people will use macros frequently in excel

 

To echo Napoleon--in IBD it's not necessary (although it can make your life easier if you decide to learn). In S&T it is desk-dependant, but you will definitely use them on a daily basis--you may not create them yourself, but you will use them, so it helps to be familiar with the basics. Either way, there is always someone out there much smarter than you on any given subject, so you can always utilize them. Everything you need to know you'll learn on the job once you come under fire for the first time, so don't lose too much sleep over it now.....

 

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Once more into the breach, dear friends.
 

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