Obtaining SAS experience I have been looking at analyst job postings and one of the most common requirement is experience of SAS. 


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*Unless your organisation currently uses SAS, how can you train as a SAS user?

*What programming language would be equivalent to SAS that employers might be happy to accept?

 A: I would recommend going through a self-study course such as the UCLA website and specifically the SAS Starter Kit.  If you learn better within an interactive environment, I would suggest checking out online course offerings such as the World Campus SAS courses offered at Penn State University (Stat 480, 481, & 482).
Update: Sorry should've read more carefully, I agree with @Christoper.Aden that there aren't really any equivalent languages with SAS.  You can learn R to perform statistical calculations, but if you need to use SAS, then learning R will only be a small step in the right direction (general programming knowledge - the two languages are incredibly different in practice).
I would recommend getting an academic discount version of SAS if you enroll in a program like I mentioned above - Penn State currently sells a 1yr licensed copy of SAS for $30 (only to students).
A: As far as SAS goes, getting certified is resume gold. The SAS Institute offers classes and exams to receive the certification. There are also books you can use if you are self-motivated.
Getting SAS is quite difficult if your company does not have it. I'm on a college campus, and they offer academic discounts on student liscenses and the campus labs have it installed on some machines. If you want something a little similar, but cheaper, give JMP a try. It's probably the closest thing to the SAS feel.
For similar languages, it would probably depend on your field. The social sciences would probably be more receptive to seeing SPSS on your resume than would the economics-related work. 
A: The programming language most similar to SAS is... SAS.  Which you can interpret using WPS, which will run SAS code and evidently costs substantially less than a SAS license and has a 30 day free trial.  I haven't used it myself, but it should get you started programming in the SAS language.
As M. Tibbits suggests, I don't think that experience with R would be helpful in most corporate settings.  I also don't think that SPSS experience will be all that helpful, either, and my sense is that it has a less than stellar reputation outside of the social sciences.
A: when i joined analytics industry( just out of my own interest) after serving software for 5 yrs..I didnt know SAS either..I got some version from somewhere and started writing codes on my own. Yes, I had programming background before that..I knew SQL, I knew general programming. I would suggest you visit tutorials and start writing codes yourself. The version is something you should get first but. Read SQL. Know everything from select * to joins to merge..tommorow if some interviewer gives you a loop or a join(left,right, full)..or some function like 1) contains 2) coalesce 3) sum, min, max, average
4) merge( in=a) (in=b) ..bla bla..you should be in decent condition that you are gonna ace it. These are just some bits from my side..apart from this you could also focus on reading things like regression analysis, MLE and OLS methods..this would show the interviewer that though this guy didnt have SAS facility he is good on general concepts..All I am preaching here is what i practiced.
A: SAS University Edition is a great place to start! 
