What is with the obsession with excel for IB (not powerpoint)?
As a prospect, everyone always says learn excel, learn how to model, etc. However, as an SA, 90% of my work was in powerpoint, and it sounds like even for FT analysts a majority of work is done in powerpoint, with some time in excel.
Why don't people tell college kids to learn powerpoint for IB? There are just as many keyboard short cuts and I would argue being good at powerpoint is a much more efficient use of time. I know so many people that are awful at powerpoint and only use the mouse and can spend hours on editing a deck that should only take minutes with the right powerpoint skills.
College kids think IB is this sexy job where you are cranking out massive models from scratch in excel, but the work you do in excel usually isn't even that hard and being an excel wizard helps but isn't the end all be all. On the other hand, the little edits that you will spend a lot of time doing in powerpoint will absolutely be faster if you have the right short cuts, and watching someone try to clean up a deck with a mouse is painful.
To all you prospects out there, spend just as much time on PPT, if not more than, practicing excel.
perspective from a consultant who spends much of my day in ppt: powerpoint skills that matter are more in slide design which is very difficult to learn outside of work experience. i don't find hotkeys to be that helpful in my day to day, as much much much more effort goes into making the slides "right" than "pretty"
excel is easy enough to learn outside of work experience
again, might not be totally applicable to IB but this is my 2c
Agreed that slide design is also hard, but in IB there is definitely an obsession with making slides 'pretty' as well, and that is where hot keys can be very helpful. Also, as you said learning to design a slide is something you really learn on the job, whereas formatting stuff can easily be practiced at home and is a super easy thing for a freshman in college to spend some time with to make sure they are prepared for a finance job.
Excel is more mechanical and is easier to learn in a vacuum compared to Powerpoint, in that modeling conventions don't really change with where you're working. Powerpoint formats however vary widely by firm and while there are some stereotypical "banker slides" it's mostly pretty idiosyncratic. Also the way banks put together PPT slides is pretty much the exact opposite of presentation best practices you learn in school and in other industries so there isn't a ton to go off of.
A pitch book's contents carries more importance than its appearance
Not really lol
explain
Probably because its easier to practice modeling/excel than it is to practice formatting. I don't even know how you would do that.
During my training my bank got us Wall Street Prep and they had a powerpoint course. Not saying it's worth paying for however many thousands of dollars that cost as a college kid, but the entire course was basically learning keyboard shortcuts and practicing lining up boxes. It ended up being incredibly valuable when I was actually working in powerpoint. You could easily do the same thing by just making your own powerpoint (or downloading a nicely formatted one from somewhere online) and then just screwing up the formatting and try to put it back quickly.
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