Economics, REI, and Excel

I have my bachelor's in economics and I've been looking for an initial analyst opportunity in real estate investment.

I've spoken with a few firms, but not as many as I'd like to at this point.

The one thing that seems to be constant is the hesitation of my degree and my experience with excel, power point, and the transition of those skills into argus.

I finally had the chance to talk to a MD who was very honest, and he said in the past it's been very common that a non-finance or non-accounting major that seems like a fit will have little to no familiarity with excel.

Is it idiotic to take a prompt given to me by the MD and my deliverable, and attach them to future applications?

So at the end of the day, it would be an extra word document that includes the prompt and an extra excel document that includes the deliverable.

4 Comments
 

I feel like Econ majors should definitely be at least proficient with excel. Are you saying that it is assumed you have no excel experience because you are an Econ major? Seems a little weird that it would be the case. Do you refer to your microsoft office skills on your resume at all?

 
Best Response

Yes, of course I list system skills in my resume such as excel, argus, etc.

Yes, in my experience thus far, it is still assumed Econ majors have little to no excel skills, despite what you put on your resume. The managers I've spoke with have said they have had a handful of Econ majors who are used to modeling on paper, but don't have excel skills when it comes down to running through investments.

And by excel skills, I don't mean taking one cell and dividing it by the other. For RE, I mean calculating IRR, XIRR, IPMT, VLOOKUP, reference cells, etc. etc. etc. I think they know everyone knows how to sit down and do the basics in excel, but they believe Econ majors don't have the exposure and therefore necessary skill set in excel when compared to someone like a finance or accounting major.

 

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