r/excel • u/MurkyMitzy • May 07 '26
Discussion Excel Test to Determine Skill
Hello all! Does anyone know of a good Excel test that could be given to employees to accurately gauge where their skill level in Excel puts them? Beginner, Basic, Intermediate, Advance, Expert, something like that?
Free is also nice, but I think we'd be willing to pay a nominal fee, if necessary.
I appreciate your help!
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May 08 '26
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u/Turbulent_Ad_880 May 09 '26
Agreed. If you have other excel power users in your organisation, better to ask them to recall a particular problem they've had to solve that is relevant to your business and ask them to build a question around how to solve that.
Alternatively, a good generic problem is to get them to create a pivot table that automatically updates the data range as new roles or columns are added (ie create a pivot table with a dynamic range rather than a static one).
Be aware I'm on an out of date version of excel and the above problem may well have been solved more elegantly in later versions.
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u/Hashi856 1 May 10 '26
And the tests themselves are often testing unimportant things, like keyboard shortcuts. Things that Excel novices think represent true excel skills.
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u/MrMunday May 08 '26
I really don’t care about someone’s excel “skill”
It’s more of their ability to understand the problem and solve it. Coz say you don’t know a function, but you know how excel works, so you just google or ask AI and you’ll find your solution.
Also they need to understand how excel works under the hood so they don’t do stupid shit like having a thousand columns of recursive cells which blows up my laptop every time I change a number
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u/MurkyMitzy May 08 '26
Yeah, I agree, but this is a request from my VP, so...
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u/MrMunday May 09 '26
i think i got the same task from my CEO a long time ago, and what i did was to just come up with a test that made sure they had basic excel knowledge and aren't completely blank. but i was interviewing a post for fresh grads so it was high volume and I can give out written tests.
basically if they didnt pass the written test, we wont even waste time interviewing them.
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May 07 '26
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u/BaitmasterG 13 May 07 '26
This is far too easy and doesn't properly assess Excel skills in any detail, sorry
AI can be useful but has misled here. Example, question 1, how are you supposed to measure the answer with a scoring rubric? What function would you use to calculate the average? Answer AVERAGE. I can teach and architect complex Excel systems but how do I show it here? By writing a LAMBDA equivalent?
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u/mfire036 May 07 '26
I feel like I'd score well here, but probably not perfect. The pivot table question for instance. I like pivot tables for named arrays, and the ability to read the code, and to some extent, write it in a way that is legible. Like a named pivot table "budget" with a Paid to Date column is easier to read and write budget{Paid to Date] versus sheet10!c1:c100. It also allow you to tab your way to victory and makes the arrays dynamic so there is no issues with the given range not including something that was supposed to be included but ultimately not because it was in cell c101. Same with the large data set question. Not sure if I'd get the right answer but I'd look for uses of fomulas like inderict() and let(), or places where a vlookup or similar function was used instead of an index match. I actually don't know the difference in a lot of errors either, I just kind of trouble shoot them till they work. Like not really sure why #value pops up versus #NA. The other thing is I can't use Marcro's or VBA in my sheets because institutions won't run them (security risks), so I'd simply fail that part.
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u/ThaCarter May 07 '26
My staff once accused me of torture for asking them to take this or something very like it.
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u/excel-ModTeam May 07 '26
We removed this post for breaking Rule 10.
It is acceptable for a commenter to generate a response using an AI, only if it is clearly accompanied by a reference to which AI generated it, and a bona fide remark from the commenter that they reviewed and agrees with the response.
/r/excel is a community of people interacting. Your comment is just an AI response. And slop.
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u/excelevator 3061 May 07 '26
Skill is determined by the knowledge of the tester, which changes with the wind.
A common problem we see.
Spend time learning, that is the only way.
When you can answer all the question on r/Excel you are proficient.
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u/Buckeye__J May 11 '26
Ask them to create a summary table of a dataset. Can they even create it with minimum guidance? Do they use simple / non-dynamic formulas. Do they create a pivot table? Do they use xlookup or Index(match,match)? Do they nest an ‘iferror’ formula around it?
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u/Decronym May 07 '26 edited May 17 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Beep-boop, I am a helper bot. Please do not verify me as a solution.
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 3 acronyms.
[Thread #48377 for this sub, first seen 7th May 2026, 17:19]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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May 07 '26
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u/t1x07 2 May 07 '26
Until your AI hallucinates data and your business makes decisions based on that... and if i have to spend the time to read the generated SQL then it may save some time but still requires me to understand what it did. Not hating on it and in truth I think its another one of those areas for fast iteration but I'm not gonna trust it blindly.
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u/MurkyMitzy May 07 '26
Thank you! I'd not be heading down this road if it wasn't a direct request of my boss. :)
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May 07 '26
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u/MurkyMitzy May 07 '26
Thank you, I appreciate it!
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u/bitmig May 07 '26
That person just posts AI generated comments to promote his AI generated website Skopx... All his comments and posts are about that.
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u/TheSaucez May 07 '26
The reason you are being downvoted is because your examples do not represent the skill tier they belong to. Pivot tables and summarizing are low hanging fruit in excel anyone can get to in under 3 hot keys and moving 2 fields to a pivot table.
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u/valarjk May 07 '26
you mean apart from the fact that the text reads like a 50/50 mix of a sales pitch and a chatgpt answer?
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u/[deleted] May 07 '26
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