Ok, I have a job interview for a practice plan manager at one of the big academic med centers here…have not had such an analytical job but do have tons of experience from grad school(2 years ago) and know excel and access fairly well BUT am not sure if it’s good enough for this job i was wondering if anyone had any advice or good words for me…
access-i have made forms and used it for data storage, to the best of my knowlege this clincial practic manager will want to look at data and use queries to ascdertain predictions for revnue/profit…is there anything else that they could do with it?
excel same as above.
I’ve been studying but was wondering if anyone else had any suggestions on areas to perhaps focus on…
if they want to look at data thru access you need to look into the queries more....how to make a new field by merging two fields, make a new field by multiplying or dividing a field and report that field, grouped by, total in queries.....have you worked with reports much? cause you would need that as well....summmary reports and detailed reports.....grouped reports where you can group on a field and when ever there is a change in record summarize the report and then start another detail/summary report....
In Access know how to do queries, and especially the Update and Make Table Queries. Reports are fairly easy, make sure you know how to group the data based on a specific field. Know how to update fields using a formula..
In Excel know the basic functions so you can write formulae, how to format your spreadsheet, and how to link data that exists across different sheets. Know how to do charts.
In Excel, perhaps the most used feature is Pivot tables.. and they are fairly easy to master. So don't worry about it. Its a piece of cake, anyway. What you don't know, you can easily learn on the job, when you work with their specific requirements and templates they have created.
That is exactly what I think, however I'm worried about how to present/represent my knowlege and lack of experience in a way that lets them know I may not have done exactly what they have here, but have worked with both programs, am familiar with various aspects and have alwyas been quick to learn and gain expertise in my previos jobs working with various programs. Basically, I can do it with a little time to learn. Uff! But thanks guys, i'm feeling better that I have been targeting the right aspects.
By the way, 99.9% people have merely "hands on experience" for Word/Excel, which is basically what the employers look for anyway. They just want someone who can pick up stuff easily. So, rest easy and good luck!
Amelie,
in order to present yourself as someone who is at least at an intermediate level of proficiency with Excel & Access, you need to show competence in reports, forms, queries and concepts of data cleansing.
For excel, pivot tables are regarded as a useful feature to have a handle on.
Finally, in order to let the interviewers know about your current proficiency, and your ability and aptitude to learn, give them examples of projects you’ve done… before the interview, just think of a couple of sentences to describe a couple of projects and how you used the software applications to overcome data structuring and analysis difficulties. It leaves a really good impression on HR people if you talk about your experiences… it shows insight and interest.
Wish you the very best of luck! let us know how it goes.
on the outset, data cleansing has to do with removing errors and inconsistencies from data being imported into a data warehouse. It could include data that is incorrect, out-of-date, redundant, incomplete, or formatted incorrectly etc.
As a preventative measure, you can incorporate a lot of checks when you are designing your Access tables. Under the design view, you can specify which fields are mandatory, the type of entries they can have (numbers, text etc.), how many characters etc. and all this can help reduce your efforts in data cleansing albeit some will still be needed.
I've always heard the term but was never really sure what it met (and didn't want to say i don't know what that is because i know i've done it in somer form).
I got you on the Access part. Essentially it's creating the form so that the inputs are limited/structured so mistakes are limited/avoided when entering data, right?
Secondly I was involved in a Data/QI project where i was not the SAS programmer but the manager of the program, there I know we incorporated checks but other than a visual scan to make sure that items were appropriate I have not really done further types of cleaning. When you say removing errors and inconsistencies from data, is that a visual/one one data removal or can there be programs/VBA created to remove such data?
a visual check proves to be a very good starting point... there certainly are scripts that are usually custom-programmed to do more extensive testing...
as long as you demonstrate the fact that you're aware of the formalism of data cleansing, you should be fine... the specifics are not all that important, because again they vary from project to project. What you told me in your post above has impressed me at least... just say it elegantly, and its bound to impress your potential employer too :)
Job interview went fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please pray for me i think this will be an awesome opp. for all my access/excel studying no worries they want some excel number crunching, etc but are looking for a data analyst who will do that for me so i can do more business analysis, very interesting job...