My excel skills are very weak. What's the best way to pick up and learn the skills before my FT role in Sept 2023. I try to watch YT but I tend to forget without any practice. Are there any class you are recommended to build up skills in the IB M&A fields?
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WSP excel and ppt courses are pretty cheap and good. Found that they were pretty structured so helped with muscle memory
I’ve found Marquee Group to be helpful.
It really depends on the level of proficiency you wish to attain. From my experience, the best way to learn is by doing. Many of the course listed above are helpful insofar as they teach you the necessary skills for IB (e.g., best formatting practices, commonly used financial formulas etc). Fair warning… some of my suggestions may come across as overkill, but I’m a relatively lazy person who likes to spend time upfront and sit back and relax after. I suggest you pick up a random project. It could be anything (e.g., build a simple model, spread comps etc.) and think about how you can optimize it. Back in the day, my mentality centered around building things to last. Think about when, how often and who will be updating the spreadsheet. Can you make it dynamic? Can it be easily understood? Play around with a few formulas, stress test them and see what can be improved. Admittedly, this thought process could be applied to anything (continuous curiosity + practice = mastery)
Get a template with all the excel shortcuts, print it off, and start doing things on excel without touching the mouse. At first, it will take you time as you will have to go back to the page every minute, but in the long run is 100% worth it.
People tend to focus on learning shortcuts for excel, but being efficient on PPT is also essential . I will also recommend you to learn how to navigate through windows (file explorer, outlook…) just using the keyboard
Honestly? Just learn how Excel works. What things do, how they connect. Don't stress about not using a mouse before starting.
Honestly, once you know your way around Excel it's so easy to speed up. Do each shortcut 2/3 times and you'll have it memorised. You pick that up when starting.
The Excel shortcuts link shared here is super helpful!
Looks like you're in need of some serious Excel-lence.
Jokes aside, get Wiley's Financial Modeling and Valuation book. It covers practical excel applications
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