# What do you do for a living?



## Got.Twelve (Oct 27, 2004)

I'm thinking about a career change. Since I enjoy Excel so much, I am wondering what careers are out there where I could use Excel primarily. I've been made fun of for creating a spreadsheet "for everything!" So I figure I may as well make money doing something that I think is interesting. I know there are some pretty hardcore Excel gurus on here, so any ideas you can give me on possible jobs would be appreciated. Thanks!


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## Chitosunday (Oct 28, 2004)

Accounting is the closest since it is a spreadsheet but you need to graduate first as Accountant.  For IT, you need to specialize on other applications as the possibility of hiring you as excel guru is remote unless you have special skills in other application like Visual basic, power builders, SAPP oracles ,etc.  Excel is usuallly just an add-in skills for IT because is hardly being used as large database which access will definitely be more promising than excel.


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## Got.Twelve (Oct 28, 2004)

Chitosunday, thanks for the input. I've already been considering going back to graduate school, so thanks for giving me some things to think about.


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## Cbrine (Oct 28, 2004)

Got.Twelve,
  The position I currently am residing in, is as an HRIS Systems Analyst.  I do a lot of Access releated work, as well as using excel as a reporting tool.  The more advanced functionality of Excel, I use mostly for automation of large tasks, like our merit process, bonus payouts.  The position involves a lot more then just Microsoft products though, so an overall comfort level with using new software is required.  Payroll Systems, SQL, VB, HRIS, project management, etc..

Good luck.


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## The Tamer (Oct 28, 2004)

Got.Twelve,

Being an international man of mystery, I can't really tell you what I do otherwise the mystery element wouldn’t be there.

You can use Excel for lots of things.  You may think only for number stuff - but no...  Sonny Bop created a macro that actually helps answer the more difficult questions in life such as:

Why are we here?   
Where are we going?     
Why do you get full on starters when you just paid a whole load of money for three courses?   

So, I reckon if you could run a macro that will bring about world peace, you’d be on to a winner.   

Or you get ideas by typing '_"Microsoft excel" vacancies_' in google and see what comes up. I just checked, and as long as you include speech marks in your search criteria, you'll get a fair bit of info.


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## dboman (Nov 5, 2004)

i'm a research analyst

excel is just a tool, like a hammer. you need to be good at it to do your job well, but just knowing how to use it well dosn't make you good at your job.


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## Juan Pablo González (Nov 5, 2004)

dboman said:
			
		

> excel is just a tool, like a hammer. you need to be good at it to do your job well, but just knowing how to use it well dosn't make you good at your job.


It does for me...


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## terracotta (Nov 8, 2004)

I'm an accountant and into quality management and IT as well. Life's great if hours of work are cut down to seconds by using VBA. I haven't explored the idea of doing say, Excel related consultancy full time but I may think of doing just that when I want a change of career.


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## AndrewAK (Nov 8, 2004)

Got Twelve:

I work Shipping & Receiving for a national Auto-Parts supplier. I constantly am faced with part numbers, reference numbers, project numbers and work-order numbers. I'm currently working on an Excel spreadsheet that collects information from a user and places that information into a named sheet. I've been able to tap the recourses of the web and found a way to print the sheets. I hope to make the record keeping of some of the things I do more organize, legible and accurate. This is the first time that I've been able to perform a real-time test of my Excel VBA application. Good Luck!!


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## santeria (Dec 17, 2004)

I finally got back to doing IT support work.
Of course, I landed a slack as hell  Govt job. It's great when people call in and you can both access the server, as well as work through specific issues... i.e.  its not what you know, its what resources you have at your command that help a lot.
We work over 20-30 states in the US, and the local staff who look after servers are as logical as a slug. On the principle that a server, or server array is as logical as the administrator, you might conclude that the system/network is a mess.
Anyway, people call in for help on thin and thick client setups, and the biggest skill is being systematic about the problem. The biggest problem is how hamstrung you can get by lack of access to basic systems. You get the most advanced geniuses who can get the application to do almost anything, but because they can't think simply, they can't see the wood  for the trees.
Most of the best users are all professional number crunchers... the tool is the application. They can get to the end result with a pencil and pad the same way they can with Excel, Access, or something else ( SAP, in the case of auditors ), and so when RFID  technology comes through to provide data  sources of all kinds, its the people who can think, rather than the people who can ONLY use their skill in an application that will survive.

The number of overqualified idiots, who can get the certifications(memory), but who can't think, and, possibly even worse, have no ethics whatsoever, are the ones who have the top positions, and are currently causing massive problems in the businesses, and the positions that look after the data sources.

Anyways, I enjoy tech support, but support per se, with a basic hand holding function, goes only so far ... the scarey part is seeing what passes for the invisible people behind the economic disaster, and how the people who think they know IT and other technology issues  are triumphing over the people who do know.
The best job seems to be a lobbyist. Low overheads ... lots of underhand payments ( or is that under the counter ?? )


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## shades (Dec 17, 2004)

I am an analyst who provides a variety of reporting sections to senior management. I got the job because I had a math degree, but had never used Excel. My predecessor used Excel but put every bit of data in by hand. Taught myself Excel over the years and within the first year reduced report time on just one report from 4 weeks to 6 hours. Then learned Access (enough to get in trouble?  ), and now it is down to 2 hours. Now the job description requires knowledge of Excel and Access, they upgraded the job level, and may do so again this coming year.

Get in, and make your way up/through...


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## elgringo56 (Dec 17, 2004)

I am semi retired, started with computers back in 1963 with the US Navy.  Now, in my golden years (???), I custom build and repair PC's and do a fair amount of excel work for my customers, making reporting systems for them.  I dont make much money doing any of it, but have a hell of a good time at it.  Retirement is great if you have a job......


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## Smitty (Dec 18, 2004)

> Get in, and make your way up/through...


I can't agree with that one more!  I'm an Analyst, whose job has turned largely into Sales Automation Development (building better mousetraps), so our sales reps & managers sell smarter and spend more time selling and less time doing paperwork.  But it evolved into that because of what my boss and I saw/thought could be done.  I.E. It takes our secretary 6 hours a week to do a weekly sales summary (by hand).  Can we speed that up?  Thanks to Excel/Access we no longer have a secretary and the process now takes about 45 seconds... 

A lot of jobs call for Excel/Lotus experience, but they often require a Finance degree.  If you're lucky, you can find a spot like I did, where you actually define the role because no one else knows how it is that you do what you do... :wink: 

Unfortunately, mine also requires a lot of buiness writing (contracts, manuals, etc.), so I don't get as much time to Excel now as I'd like.  That's one of the dangers of making yourself too efficient; they (they being those nasty folks who sign your check) find other stuff for you to do.

Whatever you decide to do I think that the most important thing is to enjoy it.  All the money in the world ain't gonna make you happy at home if you're miserable at work.

Good luck!

Smitty


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## FinancialAnalystKid (Dec 28, 2004)

I'm a financial analyst in the healthcare industry. And most of my counterparts have very limited knowledge with Excel. Of course, they know the basics, but pivot tables, filtering and things like that aren't even in their vocabulary. Which is odd. 

It's rare that I encounter a Financial Analyst in my position that even knows how vlookup works.

I taught a co-worker vlookup and some other excel techniques and she went on and found a better job as an analyst. Crazy, huh?

I was stuck in a rut, at another financial analyst position at another healthcare company (which I got because I knew excel better than most), I decided to learn just a little bit more about Excel. Liek - simple pivot table techniques and learning some functions to improve work processes. Then I went on Monster.com, and titled my resume *FINANCIAL ANALYST - EXCEL EXPERT *and got more calls than I ever got before. I landed a better job in a month that jumped my pay more than 20%!!!

Even after landing this job I was still getting calls and interviews left and right. All because of the title EXCEL EXPERT.

I even got a call from my recruiter who pulled my resume from Monster and told me that I was perfect for another job and realized it was me. He told me to take my resume down for fear my current employers would think I was still looking. So I did. 

And just by coming to mrexcel and learning a little VBA, I've made this job more proficient which has turned heads from the big wigs on what can actually be done in a limited amount of time with a financial tool as EXCEL.

Learn as much as you can with Excel then make sure recruiters know what you know and you'll move up faster in the industry if you're into Finance.

Oh... my education is two years undergrad as an Econ major at UCLA then Business Degree at Cal-State Los Angeles. Then a screenwriting certificate at UCLA.

I don't want to be in finance much longer but it pays dabills!


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## NateO (Dec 28, 2004)

Hello,

I buy and sell companies, review/analyze operations and the marketplace, reengineer processes and work with anything technical whether it's finance, accounting, tax law, marketing, IT, etc...  As mentioned here:

http://www.puremis.net/excel/MastersText/text_Nate.shtml

I find that a solid working knowledge of Excel helps with all of the above.


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## XL-Dennis (Dec 28, 2004)

Aloha,

Running my own business, MS Excel is one of the tools I daily use for delivering custom solutions. 

During the 90's I shipped solutions built solely on Excel. Nowadays Excel is only a part of the solutions. Excel is usually used as the "container" for further data analysis with the built-in tools and/or functions. 

The present of huge corporate databases & business-system and more complex enviroments where the solutions will be implemented in push the developing-process to include more tools like VB 6.0 / VB.NET, ADO / ADO.NET / SQL.  After all, Excel is per se a spreadsheet-software  

Building smaller databases with MySQL and with MS Jet Database Engine is also nowadays part of the developing-process and part of the customs solutions.

To some extend I feel it was less complicated ten years ago then it is today. But I also believe that aging is one of the explanation


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## zilpher (Dec 29, 2004)

I work for a company specializing in public safety software, we do the dispatch systems for the emergency services. My customer is actually a Breakdown Assistance company that uses our software to manage its field force of recovery vehicles.

The technologies are varied, no vba, some vb6, lots of c++, more and more .Net, IBM WebSphere, the list goes on. We use Oracle 10g as the RDBMS and a bespoke data objects interface called RADO, meaning Redundant ActiveX Data Objects, which essentially allows simultaneous read and write to multiple instances of the same database running on different boxes, allowing for redundancy and the ability to lose an instance of the db or even a db server machine without the end user even noticing.

I do a lot of design and build in my position, drawing requirements from the users requires Business Analyst skills, one of my past roles, designing the solution requires Systems Analysis skills, another of my past roles, documenting it all requires a combination of both. The build seems to be the shortest part when compared to getting it through test (the test team decide their own requirements regardless of the original requirements, which is a bind and entirely beyond my control).

I also work with Apache, PHP and MySQL on Windows which for me is the most interesting part of working with computers, I really enjoy php, it's actually a pleasure to use.

What I'd like to do is freelance properly using a mixture of all the technologies I am comfortable with, but the pays good where I am, I enjoy the car and the health plan, and the pension and the 30 days holiday a year... someone give me a shove


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## SydneyGeek (Dec 30, 2004)

I work as an Excel and Access consultant, having got here via a science career and a few years as a trainer -- I found the training to be great experience, and it was a fantastic way to get referrals for consulting work. 
I agree with the other guys -- you need more than just one skill, and it helps if you can show the client more than one way to reach the solution they need (not always the one they THINK they need!) 
The bottom line for me was in keeping the original clients happy, so they ask you back and start referring you around the company, and outside. Once that kicks in you'll be more than fully occupied, and the marketing is free!

Denis


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## Norie (Dec 30, 2004)

Nothing at the moment.


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## adaytay (Dec 31, 2004)

Today is actually my last day of my current job with a large Dairy Goods manufacturer and distributor.  I'm employed as a "Customer Service Executive - Performance Measurement Section" - well that's my *official* job title.  I'm actually a Business Analyst, and I look at the systems and processes used within the Customer Services section and try to streamline the process, by writing applications and simple systems to make the staffs' life easier.

So I've written a total of three Access apps, countless Excel spreadsheets with a reasonable level of VBA in, and saved the business somewhere in the region of 1,000 hours a month.

As I've said, today is my last day here (yay!).  I'm relocating (tomorrow - 1st Jan 2005!) to a different part of the country and starting work for a small company as an IT Analyst / Programmer / Operative (again, official title).  I'll actually be building an IT Department from scratch, customising a purchased Access Database to meet the requirements of the business, as well as supporting the staff in all IT-related issues, procurement and installation of all IT hardware / software, and basically anything you can think of to do with IT in a company network I'll be doing.

Oh... and happy new year everyone 

Ad


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## Yogi Anand (Jan 2, 2005)

Hi Got.Twelve:

What an interesting cross section of answers you received to your inquiry -- and all so meaningful!

Hi Ad:

Good Luck to you in your new job starting in the New Year!


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## NapoleonDynamite (Jan 7, 2005)

I'm a "Risk Analyst" which traditionally has to do with insurance but I don't do anything with insurance so..?  Actually I support Fixed Asset Accounting so Accounting is the direction I'm taking right now.  I hope to have a degree and then become CPA certified within a few years.  I read a cool article about a couple who started a company called TAD (The Accounting Department).  They are a full-service accounting department and work from home.  They have their clients scan all their docs to them and they keep the books.  The company has grown really fast and they are making bank.  They work at home from San Diego half the year and from Vashon Island Washington the other half.  Nice!  Sounds like a good idea to me!


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## SlinkRN (Jan 11, 2005)

I'm an RN who just couldn't stand watching my supervisors do things by hand that could be done SO much easier with Excel. I took some computer programming courses and Excel and Access courses and developed some programs that will help them out - still haven't totally convinced them to use the programs yet (they are a touch computer-phobic), but I'm getting closer! I did attain the title of computer guru on my unit and many come to me for advice about everything computer  I love working on my programs and think of it as a hobby that will make me money someday I hope  I love being a nurse too though - I work in a birthing center and I get to assist with the miracle of new life (and thanks to epidural pain releif, there's not too much screaming).                     
                                                      Slink


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## sykes (Jan 11, 2005)

Hi Got.Twelve
As Yogi said - what an interesting array of answers, and people - another reason why Mr Excel is such a great site. 

I'm a pilot and it's for this reason that I tend to visit the site in fits and starts. 
I'm a self-taught Exceller and VBAer, and have found the site very helpful, when XL help has run out, or I havn't understood in the past. 
I started out by setting myself the task of automating a simple interpolation task we need to perform at work, and became fascinated by Excel. As I achieved more and more on my ever growing "programme" it became popular with my colleagues, which in turn encouraged me to refine it with VBA etc etc and turn it into a really useful application which is used on a near daily basis now.
My early frustrations with having to start from scratch with Excel (and later VBA) have meant that I really enjoy helping out others in the same position. This is why I tend to make my replies to the new chaps and chapesses, a little more basic and, arguably, long-winded, because I found that the enthusiasm to carry on comes from early (albeit basic) successes.

I tend to only answer posts when I know I'm going to be available for several days in a row, because the less experienced posters tend to need further help even when a problem has been dealt with - often because one completed answer leads them on to the next question.... and so on, and I hate being half way through sorting a problem then "disappearing" off the face of the earth - literally, in my case!


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