What to look for when hiring an Administrative Assistant in terms of Intermediate Excel 2010 proficiency

[Aimee S.]

Hello, my Excel-lent fellow users.

The director of my company is hiring a new Admin, and he posed a question to me that I wanted to research a bit, before I gave him an answer. His question was, since the position will entail Intermediate (not necessarily Expert-level) Excel use for company metrics and report assembly/automation, what should he look for in terms of competency on the resumes he reviews?

More to the point, is there a good way to measure/test candidates for the position using a specific software set or online test, and if so, which are the most effective in determining an intermediate level of Excel understanding?

Also, I am aware of M.O.S. testing as being the gold standard for Excel testing. Is there anything else he could look for on resumes that is from a reputable company that provides Excel competancy testing?

Thanks in advance for your time.
Aimee

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

Hi Aimee

What are the company metrics? And what would the reports contain? I don't have a good enough idea for the sorts of features you would need in Excel. I think a typical intermediate Excel administrator should know the following:

1. Basic formula (IF, VLOOKUP, SUM, SUMIF, COUNT, COUNTIF)
2. Pivot tables (internal data)
3. Basic charts (build a simple column chart and stacked column chart)

And that tends to be enough for me. I am a big big fan of pivot tables (and pivot charts) and when I was office based I relied heavily on my administrators providing me such reports.

As for a test - I've seen some examples in the past but I think the best thing is to search for an online test using Google. Personally I would set-up a little task in Excel and ask the candidate to spend 15-30 minutes on it.

 

[Aimee S.]

I agree with everything you stated. I advised the same, although I would advise that in addition to VLOOKUP and COUNTIF proficiency, they should also be capable of nested IF functions (multiple conditions to be met to determine if something is true or not). All are very valuable for all sorts of metrics. Our metrics focus on quantity of work done, percentage of work done by due date, types of projects in queue according to project type, etc.

Thanks for the advice and your time.

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

Perhaps include a numerical reasoning assessment.

 

[Aimee S.]

Good point! Numerical Reasoning Tests - Practice FREE Aptitude Tests OnlinePractice Aptitude Tests