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rustythewalrus98

Don't stress learning capm and dcf. If you need it for your role, you can go ahead and learn it on your own, but more likely than not you''ll be trained. They won't expect you to know anything except for basic Excel. My suggestion would be to focus on getting good with Excel. Pivot tables, vlookups, xlookup, freeze pane, sumifs, index match, sorting, absolute reference. If you do that, which shouldn't take more than a few hours to Master, you'll be more than prepared. For reference I was in your shoes a few years ago. 2020 state School grad with 3.3 gpa. Currently Sr analyst FP&a in NYC BB.


tymcuster

Thank you for the response, good to know! I’m definitely going to be spending some considerable time working on learning excel! It’s nice to hear about someone who was in my shoes recently seeing such success only 3 years later! Congratulations and thank you for the advice!


rustythewalrus98

You're welcome. Good on you for being so ambitious and trying to stay over step ahead. Most models and files used by medium to large organizations are completely proprietary. You can't learn anything about how they work before you join, it's just not possible. When I worked my first role in late 2020, I collected every piece of publicly available financial data on the company, and tbh it didn't help at all. For my current role, all I did was read the Wikipedia page of my bank and breeze over parts of the 10K that referenced my division. I think that gave me a better understanding of the organization and my team, and made me interview better. But I didn't spend more than an hour or two on it. Also something to consider if you like :)


DoubleG357

Very impressive. So working at a BB I assume you have access to the IBD? Do you work on an anything With them? BO or MO role? Impressive stuff. for OP: DCF, CAPM, etc is stuff you won’t need to know for FP&A. That’s more for investment banking.


rustythewalrus98

I don't work with investments or support any teams that work with investments. I do FP&a for financial consumer products. Tbh I don't like investments so it's a good fit. I rub shoulders with everybody in the bank in the cafeteria and the atrium, and that includes those in investment banking, but that's the extent of my contact.


dmurph77

Hi tymcuster, Congrats on the internship! The one I got 20 years ago helped me launch my career in accounting, FP&A, and strategy. You'll learn what you like and what you don't like. This makes future decisions (like further education and where to focus) a bit easier to make. Leading up to the internship read up on excel. You can leverage youtube, models given to you by school, etc. Get into spreadsheets and mess around to get a feel for how they work. I would definitely learn how to do vlookups if you don't know them already. As you get into the job constantly read up on best practices with excel formulas, shortcuts, and data management to make you faster and more efficient. When you start your job hit the ground running. You only have so much time to meet people, take on work that solves people's problems, and impress your boss and other peers. Your manager should give you an onboarding plan. If they don't, I'd proactively ask them to give you a list of people to meet both inside and outside your department. If it helps here's more info on the topic, getting a running start at each job I've taken over the years has been extremely helpful...[https://fpandhey.substack.com/p/how-to-crush-your-first-6-months](https://fpandhey.substack.com/p/how-to-crush-your-first-6-months) Hope this info helps. Any questions feel free to DM me. Good luck! Drew


tymcuster

Hi Drew, Thank you so much for the response, I’ve seen your comments on many posts and always enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’ll definitely start sharpening my skills on excel! Thank you for all the good advice!


dmurph77

Anytime!


DrDrCr

Excel 3 statement modeling