Why should you administer an Excel skills test?

Administering an Excel competency test can give you a clear and objective assessment of a candidate’s proficiency. Rather than relying on self-reported proficiency ratings, which can be subjective and inconsistent, an Excel skills test allows you to directly compare candidates’ abilities. This approach can help you focus on those who are best suited for the role based on their skills.

For instance, rather than asking candidates to rate their Excel proficiency on a scale of one to five, you can assess their knowledge through practical tests. These tests can cover essential functions such as VLOOKUP, pivot tables and other advanced Excel features. This method ensures that you have a clear understanding of each candidate’s abilities, allowing you to make more informed hiring decisions.

How to test a candidate’s proficiency in Excel

If you need to hire someone with intermediate to advanced Excel skills, there are two main ways to assess proficiency. First, you can ask questions about each candidate’s Excel experience during the interview process. You can also assess proficiency in Excel by administering a skills test. One of the biggest advantages of skills testing is that you can tailor each test to your company’s needs. An Excel skills test may cover the following:

• Advanced formulas

• Pivot tables

• LOOKUP/VLOOKUP

• Charts and graphs

• Conditional formatting

• Macros

• Data validation

Top Excel skills to test

If you need employees who can use Excel as more than just a data-entry tool, there are some critical skills you might want to test, depending on the role.

Pivot tables

A pivot table 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 pivot table to summarize the reports submitted by every salesperson in the department.

Pivot tables are also helpful for tracking inventory costs or 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 a candidate’s proficiency with pivot tables.

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 tweak how it works.

To create macros, an individual must be able to use Excel’s Developer tab and do some basic VBA coding. Therefore, it’s important to administer an Excel competency test if you need someone to create macros regularly.

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.

Pros and cons of Excel skills testing

Every assessment method has advantages and disadvantages, and Excel skills testing is no different.

Advantages

One of the biggest advantages is that you get to find out if a candidate’s practical skills match the information on their resume. Excel testing may help you identify candidates who may be well-suited for your open role as well as other roles within your department or company. If someone scores much higher than expected, you can ask if they’re interested in one of your Excel-heavy job openings or refer them to a hiring manager on your team with an opening better suited for their skillset.

Disadvantages

A major disadvantage of Excel skills testing is that it takes time and money to create a useful assessment. If you don’t have advanced Excel skills, you’ll have to find someone in your organization who does or hire an outside consultant to develop a custom test for you. It’s also helpful to have someone monitor candidates during the testing process to prevent them from using outside resources.

As with any assessment, you will also need to account for scoring and evaluating each candidate’s performance, which may slow down your hiring process.

Indeed Assessments allow employers to test candidate skills with ready-to-use assessments created by subject matter experts. From sales skills to engineering expertise and more, our skills tests are regularly updated to ensure candidates are being properly evaluated. Learn more about how to use Indeed Assessments.

Excel skills testing: The bottom line

Excel is one of the most well-known programs for data analysis. If you’re hiring for an Excel-heavy role, it’s helpful to administer a skills test to ensure that each candidate has the skills required for the role.

Before you incorporate Excel testing into your hiring process, make sure the assessment you plan to use is closely related to the work you expect new hires to perform.