Can I Learn Financial Modeling in 3 Months?

Learning financial modeling is an empowering experience that can transform your life, but how long it takes you to learn will depend heavily on what you want to be able to do with financial modeling when you’re done. Although you shouldn’t have any trouble mastering the basics in that timeframe, you’ll have to undertake an intensive training regimen to prepare for a financial modeling career in that time. You may have guessed already, but the type of training you select can also greatly influence how quickly (and how well) you learn financial modeling. Keep reading to learn what skills you can reasonably acquire in three months, explore strategies for accelerating your learning, and consider which skills to learn after three months. 

How Much Financial Modeling Can I Learn in 3 Months 

Financial modeling is widely regarded as one of the most complex skills in the finance industry, and as a result, it generally takes years of dedicated experience to become a true expert. Despite its complexity, you can still pick up the basics of financial modeling in just a few hours. Most often, you’ll start your beginner journey by learning how to use an easier financial modeling software such as Excel. If that’s all you want to learn, then you’ll have it in no time. 

However, you can also introduce more insight into your financial models by adding a few additional skills, which you can also learn in roughly three months. Of first import, you’ll need to increase your financial literacy, developing a greater awareness of financial concepts that can help you create insightful models. Next, it can be incredibly valuable to round out your skill set with corporate finance know-how. These skills can include valuation, accounting, and financial reporting. 

As with any new skill, financial modeling can take some learners longer than others. In particular, you’re more likely to find financial modeling challenging if you have less experience with Excel and accounting. On the flip side, you may be quick on the draw if you’re detail-oriented and good with numbers. 

In either case, you’ll grow in confidence faster if you dedicate time to practice while learning. For this reason, live classes that offer hands-on training can speed up your journey significantly. Whether you intend to learn financial modeling for personal development or want to become a finance professional, the experiential assignments you’ll receive in live financial modeling classes are well worth your time. 

How Can I Learn Financial Modeling More Quickly?

No matter your goals and background, you can learn financial modeling faster by relying on resources that are specific to your needs. Depending on your desired outcome and learning requirements, the resources you turn to will likely look different. 

Free Resources (For Exploring Financial Modeling Basics)

During the next three months, you might simply want to master foundational skills. If this sounds like you, free financial modeling resources can offer beginner-friendly advice and help you solve basic problems as you go. Because many free tools are available over the Internet, they are often a quick way to get information on the fly. However, you shouldn’t expect these tools to carry you beyond the beginner level. 

A second caveat to remember is that anyone can create Internet resources, including fellow beginners posing as experts. For this reason, it’s wise to look for content published by premium finance education companies such as Noble Desktop. Through schools like these, you can access free financial modeling blog posts, classes on topics like stock market fundamentals, and short video tutorials. 

Short Live Classes (For Expert-Guided Instruction)

If you’re a casual learner, but don’t love scavenging information from potentially-dubious sources, joining a brief live class may be your quickest, least-frustrating alternative. Taught by experts, live financial modeling courses make it possible to ask questions in real-time and come in several formats (both online and in-person. These classes generally average a few hours (a week at most) and only cover topics that are small in scope. Designed for amateurs, they’re low-stress and best for navigating personal projects, rather than preparing for a finance career. 

Short Introductory Classes (to Get You Started Right) 

Beginner classes can introduce you to simple financial modeling skills such as basic Excel or Tableau. In addition to teaching you foundational skills, intro-level courses can act as a stress-free testing ground to determine whether you want to take on a more rigorous training program or career. 

Short Advanced Classes (For Niche Training)

After progressing beyond beginner classes, short advanced classes can enable you to continue leveling up in financial modeling. With classes on many topics, you can center your training around the financial modeling topics you’re most interested in, be it advanced Excel or a coding language like SQL. The biggest distinction between advanced classes and earlier classes is that you’ll generally be expected to enter the class with specific prerequisite knowledge. 

Certificate Granting Programs (For Budding Finance Professionals)

If your reason for learning financial modeling is to prepare for a finance career, joining a certificate-granting course is the quickest way to get your career started without attending a multi-year college program. These classes provide affordable hands-on training that can give you enough financial modeling experience to earn you an entry-level job after three months of full-time study. However, your training may take a bit longer if you opt for a more flexible part-time program. 

Since there are so many different directions you can choose to take a financial modeling career, live vocational training courses come in many different formats and styles. Consequently, you won’t find two courses that are exactly the same, even if they share a name. 

The most comprehensive classes are typically designed to prepare you for a specific career, such as Financial Analyst or Investment Analyst. Including full-scope training in multiple skills, immersive programs like Noble Desktop’s Financial Analyst Training Program give you experience creating models for actual businesses in need. As you work with experts to complete the task-oriented assignments in this course, you’ll gain skills in market forecasting, accounting, valuation, and financial reporting. To boot, you’ll come away with a pile of great material for your job portfolio. 

However, you may wish to focus on fewer skills at once. In this case, participating in a course such as Noble Desktop’s Excel Bootcamp will allow you to emphasize just one skill. By devoting more time to mastering this versatile office software, you’ll build your foundation at a pace that allows it to really sink in. From there, you’ll be primed for success when it comes to learning other finance skills. Although courses like this one can’t offer holistic career training alone, they can easily be combined with other classes to form a heftier training regimen. 

An additional reason to choose a class with fewer skills is if you don’t want to pay for repeat beginner training. For example, if you already understand intermediate Excel skills, you may prefer to simply expand that knowledge through Noble Desktop’s Financial Modeling Bootcamp. Using this strategy, you’ll only be learning advanced skills in Excel, giving you more freedom to add corporate finance skills to your toolbelt. Without losing any perks, you’ll graduate with the expertise of a professional Financial Analyst. 

What Financial Modeling Skills Will I Need to Learn After 3 Months?

Although you can cover a lot of ground in three months, there will be room to grow afterward, particularly if you want to create more insightful models and qualify for better finance jobs. Depending on what you want to do with your financial modeling skills, the ways you expand your skill set might vary. For instance, if you’re preparing for a career, you’ll want to focus on building a deep yet well-rounded skill set and gaining professional experience. By contrast, you might prefer to focus mainly on investment-adjacent skills if your goal is to build a retirement fund from stock market investments. 

Consider the following ideas as just a few directions you could take your financial modeling education next.

Expand Your Financial Literacy

The field of finance is immense and growing every day, and when you first start exploring it, you may feel there is too much to learn. Luckily, however, the more you increase your finance vocabulary, the more you increase your capacity to keep up. You don’t have to master it all at once—remember the adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Simply start with a topic that interests you, or explore an area where you feel your knowledge needs reinforcing. 

Here are some ideas for directions you might take your explorations:

• Accounting
• Corporate finance
• FinTech
• Investing
• Project management methodologies
• Risk management

Expand Your Software Proficiency

The best financial modelers create models using a variety of digital tools, and knowing how to use more than one can give you an edge. In addition to Excel, high-quality financial models are often created through tools such as Tableau, Google Sheets, Cube, and Oracle BI. 

The finance world also has plenty of other valuable technologies that can be used to accomplish other financial tasks. For instance, tools like Quickbooks, Hyperion, Mosaic, and SAP, are also popularly used for budget management, financial reporting, billing and invoicing, and more. 

Level Up in Corporate Finance

Taking the time to develop corporate finance skills such as accounting, capital structure, budgeting, valuation, and financial reporting will ultimately qualify you for more jobs. In addition to making you more knowledgeable, these skills give you more credence in the eyes of businesses. In addition, understanding these skills will allow you to generate financial models that provide more useful insights, making this a worthwhile pursuit even for homebodies. 

Learn to Code

Although financial modeling can be performed with software alone, adding an object-oriented coding language to your skill set will allow you to create more complex and elegant visualizations from a more diverse variety of data sets. 

Get Professional Development Training

As finance jobs get more competitive, candidates with better applications and more experience will only continue to beat you in the fight for the best jobs. They’ll earn the best salaries, score the most interesting projects, and enjoy the most fulfilling careers. If you want to be one of them, you’ll likely have to put in the time to pursue professional training beyond your initial classes. Even if you attended a career-oriented bootcamp, you may need to spend additional time building relevant experience, buffing out your job portfolio, and adding to your skill set. Among the many courses that offer professional training are career-oriented short courses (rare), certificate-granting bootcamps, and college finance degrees. 

In a finance job candidate, hiring managers often look for:

• A polished resume (1-2 pages) and LinkedIn profile
• A strong portfolio demonstrating your aptitude in job-relevant skills. 
• Professional experience (not including at-home practice)
• Professional certifications (granted after passing a proctored exam)
• References
• A four-year undergraduate degree
• Finance soft skills including problem-solving capabilities, ​​strategic thinking, and communication. 

Additional factors that can impact your success include: 

• Interview training
• Networking
• Project management skills
• Having greater mastery of more finance skills