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Excel Test Questions to Evaluate Candidates’ Excel Skills – Proficiency in operating Microsoft Excel has become an essential skill for employees in various job positions, such as administrators, analysts, and more. Excel skills are often considered challenging because they involve dealing with numbers and specific formulas to operate effectively.
To find the best candidates for roles requiring this skill, it’s crucial for HR or recruitment teams to assess the candidates’ Excel abilities. One effective way to do this is by conducting Excel tests during the recruitment process, where candidates are given a set of problems to solve. In this article, Algobash provides several Excel test examples that you can use to evaluate potential employees.
Read full also: Job Assessment Test: Definition, Purpose, Benefits, and Types!
Why Is Excel Skill Important?
What is Microsoft Excel, you may ask? Simply put, Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft. It is commonly used for data processing, which is then compiled into tables.
As mentioned earlier, the ability to operate Excel is essential for employees in certain positions. This is because Excel skills can enhance employee performance, making them more productive, efficient, and effective. The benefits of Excel skills for employee performance, as cited from Post University, include:
- Enhancing employees’ skill sets.
- Increasing employees’ effectiveness and productivity.
- Assisting employees in organizing data more easily.
- Simplifying employees’ tasks.
- Improving work processes’ efficiency.
In essence, Excel is vital for employees as it helps them perform clear and fast mathematical, statistical, financial, and data analysis calculations, which are particularly useful for data processing, numerical analysis, and other analytical tasks.
What Jobs Require Microsoft Excel?
Many job positions require proficiency in Microsoft Excel. Some of these positions include:
- Financial Analyst
- Financial Manager
- Retail Store Manager
- Administrative Assistant
- Logistics Manager
- Sales Manager
- Project Manager
- Business Analyst
- Administrative roles
- Accountants and Auditors
- Software Developers
These are just a few examples, and there are many other job positions that require Excel skills.
Read full also: 5 Common Types of Employee Assessments in Hiring
What Do Excel Test Questions Look Like?
If you’re looking to recruit employees for roles that require Excel skills, one of the most effective ways to assess candidates is by providing a series of Excel test questions during the recruitment process. Excel tests are widely used by companies worldwide. These tests are designed to evaluate how well candidates master Microsoft Excel.
In these tests, candidates are given a series of questions that assess their ability to use Excel functions, formulas, and features, covering various aspects of Excel proficiency such as data entry, formatting, formula creation, data analysis, and more.
The format and complexity of Excel tests may vary depending on the job requirements. If a job requires advanced Excel skills, the test may be more challenging. If a job only requires specific Excel functions, the test may focus on those functions.
Similar to other pre-employment tests, Excel tests can be administered online or in-person. Candidates are typically given a set of questions to complete within a specified time frame.
Now, if you’re planning to conduct an Excel test but aren’t sure what kind of questions to include, Algobash has provided some Excel test examples gathered from Aku Lulus to help you get started:
Excel Test Question Examples
- Fill in the columns for Customer Name, Product Name, and Unit Price in the table above.
- What is the total sales?
- If the purchase quantity exceeds 500, a 20% discount applies. Fill in the Net Sales column.
- Calculate the Net Sales.
- Calculate the total quantity and Net Sales, and find their average.
Read full also: 3 Interviews Type You Can Apply in Recruitment!
Explanation of Excel Test Questions
Question 1
Fill in the columns for Customer Name, Product Name, and Unit Price in the table above.
Answer:
In this question, candidates are expected to use the Vlookup formula. For Customer Name, they can use the formula =VLOOKUP(C5, M6:N8, 2, 0).
Here’s the breakdown:
C5 = is the lookup value containing the customer code.
M6:N8 = is the table array, which is the table on the right containing the names corresponding to the customer codes.
2 = is the index because the customer code names are in the second column in the table.
0 = indicates an exact match.
Question 2
What is the total sales?
Answer:
Candidates should solve this by multiplying the quantities in the Quantity column by the Unit Price column. For quick calculation, they can use the formula =G5*H5.
Question 3
If the purchase quantity exceeds 500, a 20% discount applies. Fill in the Net Sales column.
Answer:
In this question, candidates are expected to use the IF formula. It serves as a conditional formula. If the quantity in the Qty column is more than 500, they get a 20% discount. If not, there’s no discount or a 0% discount. So, for question three, they can use the formula =IF(G5>500, 0.2, 0).
Question 4
Calculate the Net Sales.
Answer:
Candidates can answer this by calculating the net sales as the total sales minus the total sales times the discount. The formula they can use is =I5-(I5*J5).
Question 5
Calculate the total quantity and Net Sales, and find their average.
Answer:
For this question, candidates can calculate the total quantity using the SUM formula, adding up all the Quantity and Net Sales columns. To find the average, they can use the Average formula.
Read full also: Semi-Structured Interviews: Benefits, Advantages, How They Work, and Sample Questions in Recruitment!
These are some examples of Excel test questions that can be used to assess potential employees for positions that require proficient Excel skills. If you want to learn more about Excel tests or other pre-employment tests, be sure to visit the Algobash Insight blog for more informative articles.