SAS and top consulting firms - Utilize my time
I have an admit from the McCombs full time MBA program at the main campus. I am already working in a small public energy consulting firm in SE Asia. I would like to get into the 'advisory' services of big 4 as well as apply for associate positions at top consulting firms (M/B/B etc...).
I have about 3 months time till classes start. I have started learning SAS software. by reading ebooks and ppt tutorials. How beneficial will SAS be in the long run (considering that I want to stick to consulting post MBA)? How can I utilize my time before the hectic schedule of classes begin at UT-Austin?
Thank you.
While I can't speak about MBB because I am not sure how they use it, I do know that firms like Deloitte, Accenture, IBM GBS, BAH, and others are becoming very SAS heavy. All of the groups in these companies using SAS are growing at a strong rate because they realize the power it brings to the table. When you can take a couple billion records of a companies data and make sense of it finding nuggets of gold, you are very useful.
I would see if UT will pay for you to take the Base cert test since that is the big one in the industry. Advance cert is nice but it really isn't a big deal, if they are looking for an advanced sas programmer they are looking for someone who has been doing it for years. The biggest key to the base cert is knowing the data step like the back of you hand and when you start working, that is one of the most powerful tools SAS offers. When you get a companies data you will not have clean data and you will have to manipulate it to get what you want. Being skilled in the data step and proc sql are huge for doing this.
I know I was just kind of rambling but I hope you found that useful. Let me know if you have any questions and if I could leave you with one piece of advice it would be try to get your SAS Base certification, it is one of the most sought after certifications in the market today.
im at a lek/ parthenon / monitor type firm, no one uses SAS. We are fairly quant heavy, but we will use SPSS or marketsight. I know SAS to a bit , has never come up
SAS is highly valued in economic consulting, but mostly for the analysts. It will be less important for associates, which is what you'd be hired as.
I think it'll still be important for associates (i.e., post-MBA) folks to be well versed in at least one piece of statistical software. My old firm used SAS or Stata... even the managers were fairly competent with the software. The only folks I didn't see getting into the weeds were the experts or team leaders. This may be firm-specific, though, given what Hayek mentioned.
Thank you R2 equals 1, run4run and Hayek for some great insight. I have had some exposure to SPSS (as well as STATA) while reading economics at LSE. I will need to find out from current students, whether the university (UT) will sponsor my base certification. I will at least try to learn the basics of SAS, before classes begin at Austin. I have also just bought the 'Case in Point' book to get a feel of case study interviews at consulting firms across the globe.
Thank you once again!
Cheers!
SAS is increasingly becoming crucial in risk modeling, or modeling in general. Firms like Oliver Wyman are using it more and more in their analysis while building LGD/EAD models. Again, it's not that common, but I can definitely see it becoming a mandatory software to learn in a few years time, as it really is a lot more powerful than Excel.
I can't imagine even trying to build a credit risk model using Excel. Besides all the obvious faults the limit on the amount of data you can use is bad enough.
SPSS is widely used, in my experience. Though I understand, anecdotally, that many firms use SAS as well.
Also, R is starting to catch on...mostly because it's free and extremely versatile.
Between SPSS and SAS, so long as you have the statistical background, it's just a matter of finding what you need in their UIs.
I have used both SPSS and SAS as a summer intern with Accenture. From my meager experience and point of view, it depends on the team leader (since you get the same answers). I have also experienced the usage of eViews, but that was with a different company. The story of my insight is; Knowledge is key.
The more you know the better.
I use matlab for everything.
At my firm SAS is widely used. Personally I feel that GUI programs like SPSS are extremely limited in scope and power. While SAS is not as versatile for regression analysis as STATA, it is invaluable when trying to make sense of very large datasets. I would say definitely learn it all you can. Even if the analysts at your future firm do most of the modeling, it would behoove you to understand the process.
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