Excel / financial modeling skills required (experienced hire) and how to develop?

Hi,

Interesting question - sharing my perspective having done numerous models during my time in consulting, across a wide range of projects.

There is no ‘definite’ bar on what your ‘required excel skill’ is, because it really depends on the needs of the case. I've done models that were extremely simple (e.g. similar to back of the envelope kind of quick calculations), and models that were extremely complex (e.g. optimizing suggested cost based on multiple variables).

I would say that as long as you have a decent ability to use the key functions, that would suffice for your average model:

• Pivot tables
• Lookups: Index Match, Index Match Match, V/H Lookup, or X lookup (in the newer versions of excel)
• Sums: Sumproduct, Sumif
• Goalseek
• Conditional formatting

In terms of how excel skills are built on the job - 95% of the time you really learn through doing. So no other way than to jump in the deep end of the pool :)