Re: Microsoft Excel Expert exam useful for junior SQL pro job?

(Excel is not really an "output option for the Oracle DB" - it is many clients (SQL Developer, TOAD, and many more) that give you a tool to query data out of the database and put it into an Excel file. Just a nitpick ;-)

But the more you become a SQL pro, the less you will need Excel *skills*. Being skillful Expert in Excel would entail knowledge of creating advanced formulas and pivoting in Excel, but that is much more efficient doing in SQL instead using the power of the database to manipulate data, rather than manipulate the data in Excel.

Personally I write a lot of fairly advanced SQL. Quite often I need to deliver the results to an end user, and often Excel is a handy convenient file format for this purpose. My TOAD easily takes my query result and creates an Excel file that I mail to the end user. Task done. End. I do not need to be an expert in Excel formulas at all, I focus on being expert at SQL because that is so much more efficient and flexible for manipulating the data.

Careerwise, being Excel Expert can't hurt you and possibly may help. But that is more due to the general advice of not specializing too narrowly at the start of your career. You do not know which skills may be needed at the companies you want to apply for jobs at.

If you are going to apply for a job that needs a jack-of-all-trades that can do SQL as well as Excel - it will be good to know both. If you are going to apply for a SQL job alone - knowing Excel will neither be positive nor negative.
If you are going to apply for a SQL job in a small shop that needs you to double as a junior-DBA - knowing Linux might be handy for you.

So it is more general career advice, that adding skills to your CV of course can be good.
But Excel skills are not specific for SQL pros - SQL pros manipulate the data in SQL, not in Excel ;-)

Regards

Kim Berg Hansen

http://dspsd.blogspot.com
kibeha_at_gmail.com
_at_kibeha

On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Lukas Lehner <weblehner_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> I ask for career advice to work as a SQL pro. Do you never use Excel? Is
> Excel skills not useful for SQL pro?
>
> Excel is an output option for data in Oracle DB. That's the connection.
>
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 9:44 PM, Tim Gorman <tim_at_evdbt.com> wrote:
>
>> It might have many uses, but nothing relevant to SQL.
>>
>>
>> On 2/18/2014 12:45 PM, Lukas Lehner wrote:
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I passed Oracle SQL Expert. I work 5% of my job with SQL but I am
>>> searching for a full time SQL job.
>>>
>>> http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145363466.do
>>>
>>> Is the Excel exam (Microsoft Office Specialist - MOS) useful for getting
>>> a junior SQL pro job? What do you think?
>>>
>>> Lukas
>>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>>
>>
>>
>

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