[cibo]

(05-09-2014 06:36 PM)poledaddy Wrote:  

I got bored quickly learning Excel in the finance classes I had in college but am kicking myself for not mastering it quicker. I handle the online advertising for one of the larger weight loss companies in the US (nutrisystem, weight watchers, etc). I'm making investments in different advertising platforms with their own reporting interfaces, and then merging their stuff with our in-house data sources, but everything has excel export so that's how I look at everything in one place on short notice if I need to.

I think if you are pulling a lot of reporting of any kind in your job, it really helps when everything becomes "second nature" so you can whip up stuff quickly and arrange the data how you want to, and are not searching around on youtube to learn how to do what you want to do. You definitely separate yourself from the pack in an interview for a data-driven type job, especially if there is a presentation component and you whip out some stuff that shows you know your shit.

For the guys saying just put it on your resume that you know it even if you don't - that plan sounds all well and good but you better learn it fast. If you come in around other people that do know Excel and it's obvious you can't do shit and lied on your resume/interview, kiss your ass goodbye. I saw that happen two distinct times at the last company I worked in.

Especially for guys trying to get a foot in the door in a "big data" type of field- it something that isn't that hard to learn, I'd say it's a solid move to focus on getting proficient off the bat, especially if you have time to do so.

Hopefully you guys are writing scripts that merge all that stuff automatically and dumping it into a database, (preferably not access), since I've seen that becoming a bitch real fast with all those spread out excel files.

Also, Excel is hardly "big data". Hell, even SQL and other traditional databases arent really big data, which shows how misued that term is. It's usually hadoop and other NoSql stuff (mongo db, cassandra, etc).