8 methods for assessing Excel skills

Some assessment methods are subjective, while others help you gather objective data. Using a combination of techniques may help you find candidates whose Excel skills match your requirements. Consider incorporating these methods into your hiring process:

1. Resume and application review

If you have a short hiring timeline, you may want to assess Excel skills by reviewing resumes and applications. Candidates often list these skills under headings like “Professional Skills” or “Technology Skills.” Your company’s application form may even have a skills checklist that includes Microsoft Excel.

Some companies use applicant-tracking software (ATS) with keyword scanning capabilities. If you use an ATS, consider having it search for these relevant keywords:

• PivotTables
• VLOOKUP
• Data validation
• Excel dashboards
• Macros
• Power Query
• Power Pivot

Mentioning specific features indicates that a candidate has at least some experience using Microsoft Excel in the workplace.

2. Screening questions

Screening questions are targeted questions meant to filter candidates before you schedule interviews or administer pre-employment tests.

You can schedule a phone screening with each candidate or ask candidates to respond via email.

Ask open-ended questions rather than yes-or-no questions to gather more detailed candidate insights. Here are some examples:

• Which Microsoft Excel function do you use the most?
• Have you used raw databases to build PivotTables? What process did you follow?
• How do you use macros in your daily work?

Candidates who are comfortable discussing Excel terminology and provide an adequate level of detail may have the skills for your open position.

3. Live skills testing

Live skills testing involves asking candidates to complete a structured Excel exercise in real time. This allows you to collect objective data and ensure that each candidate’s work is their own.

If you incorporate live skills testing into your hiring process, consider matching the exercise to the job requirements. For administrative positions, you may want to focus on sorting data or using the SUM and AVG functions. If you’re hiring a data scientist, ask candidates to build a dashboard or use Power Query.

4. Self-rating with benchmarks

When using benchmarked self-ratings, ask candidates to rate their skills against a structured scale. For example, your scale might have beginner, intermediate and advanced categories.

Providing benchmarks for each category may increase the accuracy of these ratings. Consider modeling your scale on this example:

• Beginner: Sorting and filtering, basic formulas, formatting spreadsheets
• Intermediate: VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, PivotTables
• Advanced: Power Query, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), financial modeling, nested formulas

5. Scenario-based interview questions

Scenario-based interview questions are more detailed than the screening questions used early in the hiring process. This method asks candidates to describe how they would solve a specific problem using Excel. For instance, you might ask each person how they’d use Excel to reconcile discrepancies between two versions of a report.

Scenario-based questions help assess logical thinking, workflow planning and a candidate’s ability to connect Excel use to business outcomes. It can also provide insight into a candidate’s soft skills, such as communication and ethical decision-making.

6. Whiteboard walkthroughs

Whiteboard walkthroughs resemble scenario-based questions, but candidates demonstrate their solution on a board rather than verbally describing it. For instance, you might ask a candidate to explain how they’d create a PivotTable entirely on their own.

This type of Excel skills testing allows you to assess a candidate’s:

• Communication skills
• Conceptual understanding
• Logical thinking

7. Error-spotting exercises

If your position involves working with spreadsheets created by other team members, consider adding error-spotting exercises to your hiring process. This involves building a spreadsheet with intentional mistakes. For example, you may want to include:

• Hidden rows
• Broken formulas
• Data-validation errors
• Inconsistent formatting
• Reference errors

Other assessment methods focus on a candidate’s ability to build spreadsheets. In contrast, error-spotting exercises help determine if a candidate is comfortable reviewing and troubleshooting existing spreadsheets. They also help you assess these skills and abilities:

• Attention to detail
• Troubleshooting
• Critical thinking
• Formula logic

8. Portfolio reviews

A portfolio review involves having candidates show you their previous Excel projects, usually with confidential data removed. Consider asking for these examples:

• Financial models
• Dashboards
• Charts and graphs
• Reporting templates
• Key performance indicator (KPI) trackers

When you review a portfolio, you may want to ask the candidate to explain the purpose of the project, their role in building it and the challenges they encountered. This is particularly effective when hiring operations managers, data analysts and business intelligence analysts.

Portfolio reviews are helpful for assessing:

• Work complexity
• Presentation quality
• Ownership vs. collaboration
• Real-world application of Excel principles

Why is it important to assess a candidate’s Microsoft Excel skills?

Assessing Excel skills helps identify candidate strengths that increase efficiency and reduce errors. Microsoft Excel supports business decision-making, so assessing Excel skills helps you understand if a candidate can transform raw data into actionable business insights.

Integrating Excel assessments into the hiring process also makes it easier to find employees who understand how to automate repetitive tasks. This can reduce the amount of time spent on manual data entry, allowing your organization to focus on strategic activities.

Which Excel skills are relevant to each job category?

The following Excel skills typically match these job categories:

Administrative roles

Administrative professionals often use Microsoft Excel for data entry, project coordination and basic reporting. When used for data entry, Excel is helpful for tracking the following:

• Office supply inventory
• Appointments
• Vendors
• Professional contacts

Excel also saves time and prevents errors when tracking employee travel, monitoring office expenses and planning events.

Finance and accounting

Excel is a core tool for finance and accounting professionals. When used for financial modeling, Microsoft Excel is helpful for forecasting revenue, projecting expenses and performing scenario analysis. It’s also useful for identifying variances in department or organization budgets. Finance and accounting professionals may use Excel for these tasks:

• General ledger analysis
• Bank reconciliations
• Audit preparation
• Valuation modeling

HR and payroll

HR uses Excel for compliance reporting, benefits tracking and other functions. Payroll teams rely on Excel to improve accuracy and reduce processing times. For employee data management, Excel helps track headcount, workforce demographics, benefits enrollment and salary data. Some HR professionals use Excel to perform salary surveys or calculate benefits costs.

Payroll departments may use Excel to calculate bonuses, validate tax withholdings or estimate overtime expenses. Some companies also rely on Excel for data validation and payroll variance analysis.

Marketing and sales

Marketing and sales teams often use Microsoft Excel for campaign analysis and performance measurement. In a marketing department, it’s possible to use Excel to track email open rates, click-through rates and customer lifetime value (CLV). Sales teams use the software to track leads, compare performance by territory and calculate sales conversion rates.

Operations and supply chain

Operations and supply chain professionals often use Excel to monitor performance, work processes and inventory. When used for inventory management, Excel is useful for tracking stock levels, calculating reorder points and recording supplier data. Some companies also use it for these activities:

• Route planning analysis
• Calculating on-time delivery rates
• Tracking efficiency
• Comparing vendor prices
• Planning production schedules

Data and business analysis

Organizations without business intelligence platforms often use Excel for data preparation and analysis. The software helps remove duplicates, combine datasets and complete other data-cleaning tasks. Data analysts and business analysts also use Excel to produce forecasts, analyze trends and develop interactive dashboards.

Top Excel skills to test

The following are some top Excel skills you can test for:

Basic Formulas

In Microsoft Excel, formulas automate mathematical calculations, saving time and increasing accuracy. SUM, AVG, COUNT and MIN/MAX are some of the most common examples. Consider testing each candidate’s ability to use formulas if you’re hiring an administrative assistant, HR coordinator or office manager.

Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting allows you to create rules for cell formatting, making it easier to identify data outliers and trends. For instance, you can create a rule for Excel to highlight completed tasks in green and pending tasks in red. You may want to assess conditional formatting skills if you’re filling human resources, operations or financial management roles.

Logical Functions

Logical functions allow you to apply conditions to a dataset. For example, if you want to give a bonus to any employee who makes more than $100,000 in sales, you can use logical functions to quickly determine who’s eligible. Consider assessing this skill if you’re hiring a payroll specialist, financial analyst or operations manager.

PivotTables

A PivotTable summarizes data from several sources, making it easier to spot patterns. For example, if a sales manager wants to know who made the most sales in a single month, they can create a PivotTable to summarize the reports submitted by every salesperson in the department.

PivotTables are also helpful for tracking inventory costs and determining the average customer rating for each product. If you hire account analysts, payroll specialists, sales managers, marketing managers or data scientists, you may need to assess proficiency with PivotTables.

Macros

Macros automate repetitive Excel tasks, saving time and increasing efficiency. When you create a macro, you’re giving Excel a set of instructions to follow over and over again. You can even edit the macro later if you need to adjust how it works.

Creating macros typically requires familiarity with Excel’s Developer tab and basic VBA coding. For roles that regularly involve macro development, an Excel competency test can help assess these practical skills.

Anyone can benefit from using macros, but business intelligence engineers, financial analysts and human resources professionals use them frequently. If you’re hiring for one of these roles, consider including an Excel skills test in your hiring process.

VLOOKUP

VLOOKUP makes it easier to find data in a large Excel spreadsheet. For example, if an inventory manager needs to know the number of widgets in stock, they can use VLOOKUP to find the information rather than scrolling through a large table. This function, also called vertical lookup, helps users find data within specific columns.

You may want to assess VLOOKUP proficiency if you’re hiring for a role that deals with pricing or inventory management. For example, inventory managers, accounts payable clerks, accounts receivable clerks and staff accountants can all benefit from using VLOOKUP to find data in an Excel spreadsheet.