When you see the words, “Must be proficient in Excel” on a job posting, does your stomach turn? Have you stretched the truth on your resume or in job interviews about your skill level with Excel? Do you nod your head enthusiastically when asked if you understand pivot tables, when in fact, you’ve never pivoted any table in your life?
“Excel and Google Docs are amazing ways to improve productivity. V-look ups, formulas and advanced formatting are all expected skills at most desks. Vetting a candidate works best if you give them two excel files and have them complete a case study when they are in house for the interview. Feel free to have us, the experts administer this or give any of your talent access to our “Prove It” excel tutorials.” says Sharon Tsao, CMO, Contemporary Staffing Solutions.
Excel has found its way into a variety of jobs, and it is important to know more than just how to plug in numbers and add up cells in a column. Unfortunately, if you mislead a hiring manager about your skill level with Excel, it will catch up to you quickly once you’re on the job. So from now on, save yourself the stress and just learn how to use it effectively.
How To Learn Excel On the Cheap
If you learn well in a classroom setting, one of the best resources for learning Excel are local adult education classes. Local high schools and community colleges offer a variety of evening and weekend classes designed for working adults who want to build their marketable skills. These classes are typically only a few weeks long and tend to be quite affordable since they are community-based.
If you’re looking to dig a little deeper, register for a college-level beginner course either online or in person. These will be slightly more expensive, but will be much more in-depth. Sites like Skillshare and Lynda also offer affordable online classes for learning Excel.
How To Learn Excel Without Spending A Dime
Don’t want to spend any money at all? Clear some time in your schedule, open your computer and start Googling. There are a variety of online resources you can use for free to learn some of the most important Excel skills.
Here are the skills to focus on if you’re going to teach yourself:
- Inserting rows and columns
- Autofill
- Filters (for large data sets)
- Sorting
- Removing duplicate content
- Paste special
- Text to columns
- Format Painter
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Formulas
- Conditional formatting
- Combining cells
- Pivot tables
- IF functions
- VLOOKUP
- INDEX MATCH
- Data Visualization (graphs)
Excel is an important skill in today’s modern business environment. From customer service to marketing to finance and every department in between, a working knowledge of Excel will be critical to your success.
If you are looking for new job opportunities and you’re ready to put a recruiter on your side contact the team at Contemporary Staffing Solutions today. We can connect you with a position that will help you achieve your career goals.
Read More helpful & inspiring tips here.
Contemporary Staffing connects job seekers to hiring managers nationally in the following professions: Accounting & Finance, Call Center & Office, Human Resources, IT, Salesforce, and Sales & Marketing.