Excel Test in Interview?!

[10JH]

Hey

My girlfriend has just been told that for her internet on Thursday that she will be required to do a maths Excel test. She knew she had to do a maths test but only just found out it was Excel.

Does anyone have any example test, I can't find any online. Do you reckon it is a case of a usual numerical reasoning test but having to use =SUM, etc... Or a complex data thing between multiple sheets?

Any help much appreciated!

[davidspooner]

Hello,

I had one of these when I was interviewing for Yahoo. It was quite an analytical role and required advanced Excel skills.

I found it quite hard, to be honest, mostly because I'd been using Excel 2007 and their 'test' was in Excel 97! I'm not sure if it was a standardised test or one that they had made up themselves.

It involved the following:

- Summing, IF functions
- Pivots and pulling data from the pivots
- functions across multiple sheets

I completely flunked it but was able to explain it wasn't 'my version' and that in any case I was a quick learner (at the end of the day if you don't know a function, google it)

[10JH]

Cheers for that!

Would you say the actual test would have been difficult if it wasn't for the fact the version you were using was 2007?

Also, aren't the basics of pivot and multiple sheet functionality fairly easy to learn? Is it a case of they can get very complex?!

[davidspooner]

Sorry for the delay here. Yes the version did fluster me. 97 on is very different to 2007 if you use it often enough.

The basics are pretty easy to learn - though it's hard to say without knowing the test. Can she call and ask them ("just checking length/examples so I know what to expect").

It could be just "add this cell to that one"

[davidspooner]

davidspooner said:

Hello,

I had one of these when I was interviewing for Yahoo. It was quite an analytical role and required advanced Excel skills.

I found it quite hard, to be honest, mostly because I'd been using Excel 2007 and their 'test' was in Excel 97! I'm not sure if it was a standardised test or one that they had made up themselves.

It involved the following:

- Summing, IF functions
- Pivots and pulling data from the pivots
- functions across multiple sheets

I completely flunked it but was able to explain it wasn't 'my version' and that in any case I was a quick learner (at the end of the day if you don't know a function, google it)

Also I realise I didn't point out - I got the job!

[10JH]

Thanks very much for the help, glad you got the job!

She is just gonna learn the basics and see what happens, no point with it being tomorrow in learning lots of random complex formula.

Hope the test is in the same version she practices with!

[muppetdave]

I did one years ago for my first job as a graduate, and one for word and powerpoint. The woman who became my secretary devised it, and did make it tricky - when I went for that job I'd used PowerPoint a handful of times only, and in the middle of the test opened up help and used that. When I mentioned it to her at a later date, she said "oh good, at least you knew where to look" etc.

Hopefully she'll get that opportunity to use some nous if she's not certain about something. Best of luck.