I am a Senior undergraduate student.
I am looking for a job after my graduation.
I have high interest in Research and Asset areas.
Also, I am a candidate for CFA lv.1
I am not sure if a certification of the Bloomberg Terminal can boost my value in the job market.
it’s an extra berry on the cake, but it won’t be the reason you get the job
It’s not gonna hurt you, but I had no idea what a Bloomberg terminal was when I was 25.
“Do you guys think a senior college student should know how to use the Bloomberg Terminal?”
No.
No
It is not much appreciated but if you wanted to learn anything its not bad.
I spent several hours on the Bloomberg Terminal so I could get Equity and Fixed Income certified so that I could have a leg up on the competition.
Since I got my certification, I have spent exactly zero minutes on it. And there is no employer that I have ever applied to that cares about it (or even knows what it is).
I don’t think it will help your resume much, but if it comes out in an interview that you already know how to use a machine that they have in their office, that can give you a little extra shine with your interviewer, because they may not be expecting it.
Also, if you want to do some research that requires historical data, and then circulate it as a sample of your abilities, bloomberg is a good source for it. Can’t hurt to know how to get it, but that is a different thing from getting certified so it can be on your resume.
I say do it. The few hours of knowledge may not be a huge step up but curiousity and enthusiasm for the field sure does. Why not?
if your b-school has one i think you should know how to use it. you should be using it for all your projects and hw. when i was in undergrad we had equity valuation projects, portfolio mgmt competitions, and derivative pricing homework so i spent plenty of time on there. bloomberg experience combined with getting the certs definitely helped me get a good internship during my last semester and a good job right after i graduated.
as others have said it isn’t going to get you a job, but it’s a talking point in an interview and one more thing they wont have to teach you when you start so it has some value and can help. if anything just get in there and use it a ton so you can talk about it and say you know how to use it.
I don’t see how this experience, while still in school, would be expected/required or a point of separation.
We don’t expect it, but we do take notice when a potential green hire has BB experience.
How about you actually use the Bloomberg Terminal to get results? Maybe start a side project of your own to research one of your favorite stocks or something?
I once spent hours on a Bloomberg terminal messing about with mortgage-backed-securities until I had reversed engineered their prepayment model for mortgages.
Never touched a Bloomberg terminal thereafter.
^ Because you found their model to be crap, or because you didn’t need one their models ever again?
Because I developed my own (well, technically, my employer’s: they paid me for it) model. Having never modeled prepayments, it was useful to look at their formulation and use it as a starting point. Once I could duplicate the OAS values that they published, I knew that I had my jumping-off point.
No. Master Excel and I’m talking about not using your mouse type master. Good Luck
hmmm… i think Bloomberg is more of an on job training, so i don’t think it employer expects you to know exactly what to do with it, and it doesn’t take very long to learn, honestly.
If you want to be familiar with what Bloomberg is about and what kind of information you get from it, then you can just read some online articles before you go on interviews so you kno wwhat they talk about.
Mastering excel is likely to do more for you long term, but it can’t hurt to spend a little time trying to figure out how a BBG terminal works. The UI is really really bizzare, sort of like digging through London and discovering Tudor stuff, then Norman stuff, then Anglo-saxon stuff, then Roman stuff, then celtic stuff… except that each layer is about the state of computer technology at the time the tool was developed.
For this reason, most people learn just enough about BBG to get the data they regularly need, and then press the help button to get guidance on anything new they have to learn, generally from an attractive person on the other end of the line.
Yes, there are too much info on Bloomberg to learn everything and unless you work for Bloomberg helpdesk you are unlikely to use all its function. so i guess learning some basically tools and leave the rest on the job is good enough.
Excel on the other hand you will need on day 1. You need basic formatting skills, shortcuts, tables, formulas… they are definitely things you will need in every job. even if you don’t need it explicitly, but knowing those techniques will help yourself analyze things and dig through information.