This guest post is from Rhys, one of our BSc Accounting and Finance students currently on placement at IT Industries.
Going through the process of deciding you want to go on a placement and then actually starting the application process was one of the first times a realised the importance of skills in the eyes of an employer.
This may seem like an obvious foresight on my part, but when I say skills I mean those that are generally outside of the norm that you would expect when applying for a job. Rather than shouting about the floods of A*’s and A’s you achieved at A Level and the consistent 1st degree honours you now receive in your work, companies are becoming increasingly more interested in reading a clear, concise section within your CV containing “Skills” and their relevance to a workplace environment and specifically, THEIR workplace environment.
For me, this lead to these sections in my CV:
- Teamwork and communication;
- Problem solving and analytical skills;
- Professional skills and;
- Information technology
I felt as if my IT skills were always strong so where the other sections contained maybe 3 or 4 lines of solid information, my IT sections included the fact I could use Word, PowerPoint and Excel to what I considered to be an intermediate to advanced level.
I overestimated my IT skills during the application stage.
There hasn’t been a day since I started the placement where I haven’t had to use Excel for something and I can see that my skills at the start of placement were nowhere near advance but also nowhere near intermediate but actually incredibly basic. It was not as if anyone within my placement had the time to help me brush up on my Excel skills either (which is likely to be the case in every company) so I had to take it upon myself to learn everything that I needed to use through a lot of Googling and use of external resources (some are mentioned at the end).
More and more companies these days are specifying Excel skills in their job descriptions, so it is incredibly important to have a realistic idea of where your Excel skills are before going to interview.
My advice would be:
- Test yourself – have a realistic idea of what your skills are and be able to provide examples. The link before contains loads of excel tests where you can see what level you’re currently at and whether you would need to improve for an interview
https://www.wiziq.com/tests/microsoft-excel
- Take examples of your spreadsheets to any interview that specifically mentions Excel skills in the job description and be able to explain them in full. The more complicated the better at this point, but try to make it relevant to the job you are interviewing for.
- Always look to improve your Excel skills, no matter what level you think you are at – companies will be looking for you to develop your skills with them throughout placement year and so will want to see progress. Always have an idea of what you have achieved, then once you have achieved that, have another idea in mind. Actions like this will be very useful especially when reflecting using the STAR method.
Make use of the free online test to find out exactly what level your skills are at.
One last quick note, a course that helped me out greatly was the udemy course and the link can be seen below.
Doing this course will provide you with an excellent qualification and talking point on your CV. Even if you don’t require the whole course, it can be used as a fantastic resource to fall back on should you need reference.
If you don’t fancy shedding out any money for Excel courses or if all else fails…GOOGLE IT!
I have not yet come across a problem that someone else has not already come across and complained about online. There are tonnes of Excel specific forums that are free to view and can provide you with every answer you will need to know. A few of the ones I feel are the best are:
The last obviously not being Excel specific but incredibly useful as it will often show you, step by step, exactly what you need to do.
It may not be the most interesting program to spend a lot of time on (it may even be some peoples worst nightmare), but following a career path based around finance will almost certainly have you using it during your professional life, so it is always important to make sure you are prepared!
