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Where are the jobs? 2014 INC 5000 List might provide some answers…

2014 INC 5000 data viz

          What do Domino’s Pizza, Microsoft, Timberland, Tough Mudder, Intuit, Vermont Teddy Bear, E*Trade, Lending Club, Morningstar, Oracle, Fuhu, Cold Stone Creamery, Under Armour, and GoDaddy have in common? They all have appeared on Inc Magazine’s INC 500 list of the fastest-growing American private companies. Looking at the last year’s INC 5000 list might help us draw employment insights and identify best industries and places to look for a job. By definition, these company are experiencing tremendous growth, and as such, could be representative of future job opportunities in the US. In addition, according to Forbes , small businesses added over 65% of the net new jobs in the past two decades. So, where are the jobs?! Based on INC 5000 data, Chicago, IL employs over 5% [56,813] of all INC 5000 workers. Another 14% [144,847] of INC 5000 employees work in California. Top 3 industries by employment include: Human Resources, Business Products & Services, and IT Services . Together, they are responsible for almost 400,000 jobs, or 38% of the grand total.

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Calculate your age, WITHOUT using Excel’s DateDif function.


Calculate Your Age in Excel, without DATEDIF function

          My previous post on using Excel’s DATEDIF function resulted in rather productive discussions on LinkedIn. First of all, some users are concerned that the DATEDIF function will no longer be supported in Excel and will cease to exist at some point in the future. Microsoft openly states that “this function is provided for compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3.” , and given the history of this support, I don’t see why it will be discontinued. Nonetheless, I will make an attempt to replace DATEDIF function with other functions readily available in the program. Secondly, as a reminder that English is not the only language in the world, Microsoft created “local” versions of this function. A user confirmed existence of the SIFECHA function, but the syntax to use it, involves using semicolons, instead of commas. If you are using Spanish version of Excel, you might want to try both versions:

SIFECHA(fecha_inicial,fecha_final,unidad)
SIFECHA(fecha_inicial;fecha_final;unidad)

          According to this site , remaining versions of this function include:
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Calculate your age, using Excel’s DateDif function.


Excel's DateDif function - Calculate Your Age

          During this time of the year, most of us find ourselves performing some sorts of date manipulations in Excel: running year-end reports, creating a project plan for the next year, or simply setting up a new calendar. Let’s use one of Excel’s “hidden” functions to calculate one’s age in years, months, and days.

          We remember that Excel stores dates as serial numbers, in consecutive order. According to Microsoft, Day 1 fell on January 1st, 1900. Therefore, today’s date is equivalent to number 42,020 (meaning, 42,020 days passed since January 1st, 1900.) This makes it fairly easily to calculate difference between two dates [in days] by subtracting one date from another. While Excel does not support dates prior to January 1st, 1900 out of the box, if you need to work with such dates, John Walkenbach offers an Excel add in: XDate to help with this task.
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Happy New Year! Highlights of 2014.


Happy New Year - 2015!

          2015 is quickly approaching, and I wanted to share the brightest highlights of 2014 with my readers. All of the events are listed in chronological order:

         #1. First blog post , on Income Tax Rate inequality in US published on August 27th.

         #2. First influencer follower on Twitter – @Modeloff . World Financial Modeling Championship followed me on Twitter on October 27th. They subsequently retweeted my solution to the 2013 Modeloff Data Analysis problem.

         #3. Official Twitter account of my favorite software application – @MsExcel (if you really have to ask) , followed us on December 10th.

          The opportunities are now endless. Who knows, perhaps they will grant my New Year’s wish:

         #4. One SlideShare presentation viewed 1,000 times , My presentation on the best AT&T plan for your iPhone6, reached 1,000 views on December 16th. All four of my presentation have accumulated 2,000 views on the last day of 2014…

         #5. Like on LinkedIn update from a real-life Excel MVP , Jordan Goldmeier – Excel MVP of @OptionExplicit and Cambia Factor fame liked my LinkedIn update on working with nested if functions in Excel on December 26th.

          Have a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2015!