# Excel Proficiency Test?



## John Cockerill (Sep 8, 2005)

Does anyone know of an Excel Proficiency Test? We are trying to hire an analyst with good to excellent excel skills to: debug existing sheets; create new models; extract data, dates and time from other systems etc. 

A lot of people talk a good game then once on board we discover they've use Excel but are still doing =sum with few if any other functions.


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## Smitty (Sep 8, 2005)

Welcome to the Board!

A Google search will turn up quite a few hits, like this: http://www.expertrating.com/Microsoft-Excel-test.asp

You can also search the Microsoft Preparation Guide for Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel 2003 Expert

HTH,

Smitty


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## Greg Truby (Sep 8, 2005)

You might PM Tom.  When Dan brought up the subject, Tom mentioned that he was looking into developing a tool for this, he might have put together a product your company could purchase...


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## gwkenny (Sep 13, 2005)

*Hmmmm*

A person who is very proficient in Excel should be able to vet potential candidates if they have the skills within a minute or two.

Assuming this person is not available to meet your candidates, have the interviewer bone up on something only an experienced Excel person would know.

For example, what is an array formula and how and when would one use it?

What is a dynamic range name?  What are the uses of a dynamic range?

Can they do text string manipulation?  If so what are the major text string manipulation functions?

What's the custom number format to get Excel to display data in such and such form...

Offset, vlookup, hlookup, match, and index would be key functions that anyone you want to hire should know if they are going to do any sort of structuring.

g-
gwkenny
Fin-ITSolutions.com


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