Excel is the most dangerous weapon available to an aspiring carierist, I have accidentally used it myself to a great advantage. To understand this phenomenon you have to look at the world though the eyes of a manager: they have tons of smart people coming up with tons of interesting but not well-articulated or substantiated ideas - heavy on opinion light on tangibles. How can a manager pick good ideas out of endless stream? If he understood what you do he wouldn't need you to be there. So if you show up with actual data in Excel they love you right away.

Here is probably how I'd break it down (based on what I've seen my friends in the finance industry do): Analyst = excel grunt work VP = budget grunt work Senior VP = investment work

It depends on the fund. All funds are different so it is tough to generalize, especially since they widely vary in size and responsibility.

I have a good friend that works for a large mutual fund who already pitches stocks to the PMs. Other guys I know are simply excel monkeys.

In investment banking, it is a bit different. Analysts and Associates are excel jockeys with the job translating towards sales/deal sourcing as you climb up the ladder.

This is very true, the junior levels are all about being an 'excel monkey'.

"neither were promoted for anything related to doing what investment firms are supposed to do -- finding good opportunities to invest in."

"instead pumped out mediocre returns while gobbling up fees off of their clients/investors."

Your words succinctly capture the true nature of almost all financial services firms.