VLOOKUP issue with wildcard parameter for partial matches in number/letter combinations

[BrooksProctor]

Hello, so I'm using Microsoft Excel on Office 365 and I'm using the VLOOKUP function and having some issues.

Here is the current state of my formula I'm trying to troubleshoot:
=VLOOKUP(C3&"*",A:B,2,FALSE)

Column A is filled with identification keys composed of letters and numbers while column B contains the corresponding measurement numbers. Now while this function does technically work, it is exclusively working for cells that match the exact value of the identification keys in column A. My desired output was for me to be able to write in a new cell (in this case C3) an ID key, excel would see that the front part of the key matched an existing one, and then in the next cell it would output the corresponding measurement. As I mentioned, it's not working even though I used the &"*" wildcard adjustment. If I write a single space, letter, or number after the ID that already matches then the output will be #N/A.

I've looked through so many tutorials, asked AI assistants, and tried a bunch of workarounds like combining MATCH and INDEX but nothing is working. I swear this seems so simple, yet the wildcard just seems to malfunction. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[BrooksProctor]

Amazing, that worked perfectly. I'll have to look that LEN function up so I can understand it better, but this did exactly what I needed.