Are Financial Modeling Bootcamps Worth It?

What is Financial Modeling?

Financial modeling is the process of analyzing financial data to forecast outcomes and gain a clearer understanding of financial situations. In business, financial modeling is vital to setting up lucrative business models and enables business owners to make more informed decisions. 

Financial modeling is often performed by finance professionals such as Financial Analysts and requires advanced knowledge of financial markets, investment, and other financial concepts. Finance professionals also rely on a combination of math, coding, and software tools such as Excel and Tableau to perform financial modeling tasks.

What Can You Do With Financial Modeling?

Financial modeling has always been a pillar in the finance industry, but it also has many practical uses for businesses and individuals in other fields. Wildly utilitarian, financial modeling is used across the globe to optimize personal finances, upgrade commercial enterprises, and mitigate risks. Pragmatic folks from all walks of life can take advantage of these tools to grow their wealth and ultimately make smarter financial choices. 

Start A Finance Career

Because it’s useful for so many things, financial modeling is a viable career skill with many potential paths. In the finance industry, financial modeling is a prerequisite for obtaining coveted roles like Financial Analyst, Investment Banker, Venture Capitalist, and Accountant. In addition to financial modeling, these roles typically also demand expertise in a variety of other job-specific skills, such as accounting. 

Grow A Business

Financial modeling is a fantastic tool for projecting sales growth and tracking investments in the stock market. In addition, financial modeling can make the path forward clearer by providing accurate information about past, present, and future financial scenarios. Models can offer realistic valuations of your goods and services, insights into what’s driving sales, and even assess risks. With these tools at your fingertips, you can say goodbye to decision fatigue and rest easy knowing your business is on an upward path. 

Take Your Personal Finances To The Next Level

Most people can agree that keeping a simple budget spreadsheet can help you make better money choices. However, if you’re still finding it hard to make your money outlast the month, or want to turn your dollars into a more lucrative investment, you might want to consider learning financial modeling. While a table-style spreadsheet can help you keep track of expenses, a financial model can help you break down your finances into a visual chart that can provide insights into your habits. In addition, models can provide insights into how your investments and debts are performing, prompting you to take action when necessary. 

Make Informed Investments

Although the stock market can be difficult to understand, you don’t have to be an Investment Analyst to invest in the stock market. In particular, deciding when to sell your stocks can be an incredibly challenging decision. However, developing your own financial model can help you follow your investments over time, allowing you to make more lucrative decisions. 

Why Learn Financial Modeling in a Bootcamp?

There are many different styles of financial modeling classes to choose from, and bootcamp style classes are by far the best choice for anyone planning on a financial modeling career. When contrasted with most other training styles, bootcamps can offer the most comprehensive experience-based training in the shortest amount of time. That said, choosing a course is a highly personal decision that should take into account your learning style and limitations. 

Understanding what sets different training modalities apart can make it easier to determine whether a financial modeling bootcamp is right for you. In terms of career preparation, you’ll get more out of a bootcamp than most shorter financial modeling courses, which tend to target beginner basics. In contrast to long-haul college programs, financial modeling bootcamps can get you ready to enter the workforce in several months and offer career support to help you secure a job. 

Bootcamps Compared to College

Studying at a university has remained one of the top ways to prepare for a finance career for many decades, and this isn’t without good reason. Colleges provide a wide range of classes examining topics in finance, accounting, math and statistics, and economics at a much greater depth than most bootcamps. In a college program, you can also choose to specialize in a unique area of finance, such as accounting or financial analytics. 

In addition to providing a more comprehensive finance education, college degrees also incorporate multidisciplinary requirements, meaning that you’ll be obligated to take many classes that don’t pertain to financial modeling at all. Some students find it annoying to have to examine topics outside their area of specialization, but many discover that exploring topics like philosophy, language, and science enhances their critical thinking and communication skills, ultimately turning them into savvier finance professionals.

In order to provide an incredibly high-quality education that ultimately pays dividends once you join the workforce, intensive college degrees demand a lengthy time commitment. The average undergraduate degree can be completed in four years, while most Master of Finance (MBA) degrees take between two and three years. In general, you can qualify for most entry-level finance jobs with an undergraduate degree, but you may need an MBA to snag top positions such as ​​Senior Financial Analyst. Many hiring managers look for finance candidates who have at least a college bachelor’s degree when filling a position. Additionally, statistics show that job candidates with college degrees earn higher wages than those without. 

These statistics demonstrate that it’s incredibly difficult to chart a finance career without a finance degree, but it is possible. Whether you’re relying on a degree in another field or have no degree at all, you can still become a Financial Analyst with help from the right financial modeling certificate course. These accelerated programs can provide you with hands-on skills training that doubles as professional experience and helps you compile a stand-out portfolio. Additionally, certificate-granting bootcamps can prepare you with the knowledge necessary to earn a certification, a respected qualification that can earn you better jobs and a higher income. Along with plenty of training, financial modeling bootcamps usually come with career support packages that may include job guarantees, portfolio workshopping, and interview training. 

The biggest downside to college degrees is their massive cost barrier, which leaves many students with lifelong debts they can never pay off. Meanwhile, completing an entire bootcamp costs just 5-10% of one college semester, and may only take you days to months (contrasted to years). 

On the flip side, the main drawback to finance bootcamps is that you can only gain so much experience and expertise in such a short time. While college programs offer several years of time for you to hone your skills, the rapid pace of bootcamp training leaves you with less time to devote to truly mastering each skill. Consequently, you’ll likely need to continue gaining knowledge and experience after graduating from a bootcamp. 

Bootcamps Compared to Self-Paced Courses

As you survey different training modalities, self-paced training may jump out at you as an at-home learning option that exists at the opposite end of the spectrum from the rigor of college courses. Also sometimes referred to as on-demand or asynchronous training, self-paced courses work by providing self-study materials that are pre-prepared so that you can study them at your leisure—no live instructor necessary. 

When you sign up for a self-paced course, you sacrifice comprehensive career training for total flexibility, which is great if that’s what you’re after. Because there’s no scheduled class to attend, self-paced courses enable you to learn whenever and wherever you wish. The absence of rigid class structures makes it possible to fit learning in if you have an irregular schedule or require more breaks. However, unless you’re a highly self-motivated learner who doesn’t rely on instructors for support, this style of class may not be for you. 

While bootcamp classes rely on live instruction and hands-on activities to train you, self-paced courses teach financial modeling via self-study materials. These materials may include video lectures, reading lessons, and assignment recommendations. With no instructor, you won’t receive feedback or have the opportunity to ask questions as you go, making it more challenging to spot mistakes and solve problems. 

One benefit of self-paced training is its relative affordability. Since schools don’t need to pay for regular class expenses like renting out a classroom and paying an hourly instructor, self-paced courses are typically much less expensive than attending a bootcamp. Often, you’ll pay for self-paced courses as part of a subscription to a broader learning service like SkillShare, meaning that you can cancel whenever you choose. When mixed with a strong tendency to procrastinate, however, a subscription-style self-paced class is a recipe for failure. 

When learning a new skill (especially for a career), it’s vital to choose an education strategy that gives you all the tools you need to succeed. Built for career preparation, financial modeling bootcamps incorporate professional experience opportunities into your training so that when you hit the job market, you have something to work with. Instead of simply offering theoretical content for you to consume, bootcamps forge marketable skills through hands-on training. The practical assignments you complete while participating in a bootcamp will also give you the unique opportunity to develop important financial soft skills. You’ll also leave your bootcamp with a strong portfolio that proves your expertise. 

Despite their shortcomings, self-paced courses do play an important role in financial modeling education. Although they’re less comprehensive than bootcamps, they make it possible for more people to get beginner training. That said, if you’re an amateur learner with no plans to learn financial modeling at an expert level, an on-demand class might be the more cost-effective choice for you. On-demand classes can also be a useful compromise if you simply don’t have the time or funds to attend a bootcamp. Nonetheless, if you intend to become a finance professional, saving up for a more comprehensive program will likely save you money in the long run. 

Bootcamps Compared to Free Training Options

As a money-saving strategy, you may be considering free financial modeling resources. These come in many forms and are widely available through public libraries and the Internet, which makes them easily accessible, but also leads to foibles. Popular free financial modeling resources include books, video tutorials, online finance seminars, articles, and educational blog posts. Reputable schools also offer free workbooks and sample versions of their classes, such as the Stock Market Fundamentals course by Noble Desktop.

You may prefer to start with free learning resources if you’re new to financial modeling but aren’t ready to pay for a class. These options can also be great tools for figuring out whether financial modeling is for you without getting too deep in the weeds. Analogously, free training offers a low-risk way to explore new financial modeling knowledge as personal enrichment outside the bounds of professional finance. On the go, free resources can also make it easier to find quick answers to questions, supplementing your training outside of classes. 

Despite the heaps of free learning materials for financial modeling, these resources are unlikely to take you beyond a beginner's aptitude in this skill set. Never viewed as adequate career preparation by the finance industry, free professional modeling resources tend to cover smaller topics with less depth, often leaving out substantial details for the sake of simplicity and accessibility. Moreover, while these resources can provide tutorials and theoretical knowledge, they can’t help you refine skills through guided practice in the same way that a live instructor can. Neither can a free resource provide you with the professional experience you’d get from a bootcamp. 

One final matter to be aware of is that many free education resources are created by amateur financial modelers, making them more prone to misinformation and outdated guidance. For these reasons, consider carefully whether your information is coming from a reliable source. While working with free resources, you’ll also need to become adept at piecing together disparate information from scavenged sources, which may leave you with more questions than answers.

Learn Financial Modeling Skills with Noble Desktop

One of the most popular ways to learn financial modeling is through Noble Desktop, a tech educator with live online and in-person finance bootcamps for all learning goals. Their expert-led training programs are dedicated to building skills and experience that you can apply right away, whether for personal projects or a career. 

Get started on your finance career today with a high-quality certificate course like the Financial Analyst Training Program. This vocational training course maintains a beginner-friendly format while ensuring you receive the comprehensive training needed to launch a successful finance career. While teaming up with a real restaurant company, you’ll develop skills in Excel, valuation, market forecasting, and accounting. The live Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model and three-statement financial model you build in this course can even become a part of your professional portfolio to help you score entry-level jobs. 

You might not be interested in pursuing a full-scale finance career, and if you’re an average person who wants to make smarter money decisions, Noble Desktop also has an amateur-friendly Excel Bootcamp that can help you turn standard office software into a powerful financial modeling tool. In this short class designed for business professionals, you won’t sit through boring lectures with no practice tasks. Instead, your expert instructor will guide you as you get comfortable using Excel to organize databases, perform numerical analysis, and generate visual charts. 

If you’re an intermediate learner who wants to take it up a level, you can build on past Excel skills in Noble Desktop’s Financial Modeling Bootcamp. Connect with an expert as you combine advanced Excel techniques with corporate finance skills to complete hands-on projects. While assembling a DCF model and a three-statement financial model for a real company, you’ll gain on-the-job experience that employers will take seriously. All the while, your financial literacy will grow as you hone your knowledge of concepts such as accrual versus cash accounting, market capitalization, and enterprise value.