excel certification test

Is there a test for excel I can take that will look good on my resume?

Oh God no.

There’s a Mous certification.

If you send me $200 I’ll send you a certificate indicating you’re in Royal Order of Darien Hackers (even if we’re just a bunch of taxi drivers).

An excel designation makes more sense than 90% of the designations out there.

DealMaven or Wallstprep might offer some sort of certification upon completion of their courses. Not sure 100% though…

What about this certificate? Is it of any use? Respectable? It only takes 100 hours to finish the course and you have to pass an online exam. Wall Street Prep Certification of Financial and Valuation Modeling

I think that’s the one that I’ve seen before. I think the certification (the actual “stamp of approval”) doesn’t mean anything. However, you might pick up some skills by actually spending the 100 hours building the models.

Will people laugh at that certification on my resume ? :slight_smile: Is it sort of like University of Phoenix?

There is an official Excel “Expert” qualification put out by MSFT. I think it would be a joke to put on your resume for FO jobs, but I see it as a distinguishing qualification for positions that typically employ people that aren’t very tech-savvy. Edit - I’ve worked through the Step-by-Step Expert book MSFT put out and it’s good for newbies to Excel (as I was). Comparing what you learn in the book vs the real world FO applications (or even some BO applications - I’ve seen some cool stuff done here as well) and the book is an absolute joke. Like I said, though, it’s good for newbies and most non-FO jobs.

try www.brainbench.com. They have online tests/certifications

Any real computer expert can make Excel sit up and beg. Putting a certification on your resume would send exactly the opposite message.

sickel, do you have any work experience (e.g., internship, 2 years ER analyst, anything) that would indicate Excel facility? As JDV indicates, this is a much more powerful way of indicating your abilities than demonstrating that you paid X hundred dollars for a piece of paper.

We don’t even put “advanced excel skills” on our job postings, because anyone we interview will clearly have that from their prior experience. Ergo, we also think resumes which list “computer skills” are wasting space.

Right ^ That’s the point. If someone asks if you are good with Excel, look baffled and say Of course.

Hrm, maybe I shouldn’t list Excel at all on the resume then? I have it listed in a “tech” bullet point. To answer the original question, I think a certification in Excel wouldn’t be looked on favorably. If you taught a high-level course in Excel, maybe that’d be different. It’d be better if you showed them how good you are at Excel than “I have this piece of paper that says I passed a test that is suppose to mean I’m good at Excel”.

I think you should drop it if you have other tech things on your resume.

You say you are X-sell side. If you’ve spent a few years in banking or research, it’s safe to assume you have an adequate knowledge of excel.

You are right. I think the experience in my various jobs makes it pretty obvious I deal with Excel daily. I’ll keep the other software packages I deal with on there though. *goes back to putting together another macro*

Speaking of Excel, I am doing some company modelling and every time I unsuccessfully mess around with my Depreciation schedule, the whole thing goes a bit berserk. So, if I, for example, decide to alter the depreciation schedule, but in my haste, alter the formula (in this case VDB function) incorrectly, I get #NUM errors all over the mofo. If I fix the error, the #NUMs disappear from the depreciation schedule, but won’t disappear from the Income Statement or any other schedules. My solution today has been to close and open up the previously saved version and start again!! Help! (I took a Training the Street course in NYC 3/4 yrs ago when I started in IB for a BB, but my modelling skills have deteriorated a little - apparently - since then).