What Computer Skills

Hi All, What computer skills are most marketable while searching for entry level finance job? (Background: BS in Eng+MBA in Finance+hopefully CFA+no finance experience) Thanks!

excel, word, powerpoint some jobs would like macros and VBA also many firms use prop info that you will not learn since it is build for firm xyz so being able to learn new programs quickly is a plus…

C++,CSharp for more quant/programming related jobs.

Nah, I’d stick to bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills, nunchuck skills.

Excel is a MUST…I’m guessing you want to go into Equity Research? With your BS in English you’ll def have an edge.

nunchuck skills…classic…lol

TPain, I hope you meant to say BS in Engineering lol

english is hard core man…lol

HoldSideAnalyst Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Nah, I’d stick to bowhunting skills, computer > hacking skills, nunchuck skills. i have nunchuck skills covered, seriously! LOL

EXCEL. Others are “nice to have”.

Excel, Access, C#, R

“bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills, nunchuck skills.” girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

mlh97 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. I suspect that also includes “talking skills,” and “ability to see the exceptional returns on flower investments”

napoleon dynamite?!

bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > mlh97 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > girls only want boyfriends who have great > skills. > > > I suspect that also includes “talking skills,” and > “ability to see the exceptional returns on flower > investments” Flower investments? There used to be US Gov’t bonds called “Flower bonds” because their interest was free from taxes if part of the inheritance…

Hi, I have Mechanical Engineering background, not English… I know Fortran, SAS, SPSS, and SQL… Anybody using them? Thanks!

minocfa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have Mechanical Engineering background, not English… > I know Fortran, SAS, SPSS, and SQL… Anybody using them? Fortran ought to be a transferable skill. There are only so many ways to express “IF … THEN … ELSE …”, “BEGIN … END”, “DECLARE” etc. SQL isn’t too bad and I wish I knew it better than I do. Database knowledge is bound to be interesting if you’re working in finance; analyzing data will always be necessary.

minocfa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have Mechanical Engineering background, not > English… Then you may be at a steep disadvantage… just smile a lot and nod when people talk to you and you may be able to overcome it. And learn Excel. VBA is not required for most “finance” jobs (fundamentally based finance)… but then again, neither are quant skills, really. You would do best to brush up on your writing and presenting skills after Excel.

I know basic stuff like Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc… I did not mention them since I assume that everybody already knows them.

minocfa, are you a native English speaker? Based on some of your posts, it seems like communication is where you are most lacking. As people have said, that is more easily overlooked in a quant or risk manager, but will be a major issue if you want to be an analyst. Any work you can do to bone up on your English communication skills would be the most important, I’d think. All the other stuff would second.