A Microsoft Excel test is a pre-employment hiring assessment that employers use during the recruitment process to check how proficient candidates are with Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheets allow users to input and analyse data efficiently, and are used in all kinds of office jobs; as such, Microsoft Excel Assessment Tests are becoming increasingly common. In this post we will learn how to get prepared for Microsoft Excel Pre Employment Test by looking at Top 50 Excel Test for Job Interview Questions and Answers. We are also going to look at how companies conduct excel skills test, how employers test for Excel skills, review sample questions asked as part of Excel Portion of Job Interview and look at the resources to get prepared for each test the fastest way possible.

Why Employers Test Job Candidates?

Assessing a job candidate’s Microsoft Excel proficiency is an important step in making the right hire. The intermediate Microsoft Excel skills test is helpful in learning if a job candidate understands how to manipulate the many functions, tools, and formulas of Excel to present extensive information, identify key trends, or calculate financial and numerical data.

Microsoft Excel is a complex business application which allows companies to record, track, and analyze data and perform very complex modelling and calculations, essential for measuring company performance, maximizing return on investment, and defining goals. Since Microsoft Excel is used in a lot of organizations, employers would like to make sure that candidates has solid Excel skills and experience using the tool. A new employee who can comfortably navigate is prepared to immediately contribute by producing meaningful, data-driven spreadsheets, reports, and graphs to best serve company needs.

How Employers Test for Excel Skills?

There are multiple providers that conduct the tests and each one of the tests is a little different. Most of the time employers use below providers to conduct the tests

• Indeed.com
• IKM
• SkillCheck
• TotalTesting

Because Microsoft Excel is so popular and useful, companies are trying to evaluate candidates by conducting pre-employment assessment test. An Excel Interview Test is a screening process employers use as part of the candidate employment interview to test a potential candidate on their knowledge and proficiency of Microsoft Excel.

Each employer might use a slightly different variation of the Excel test. The Excel Assessment Test typically broken down into a multiple-choice section and an interactive portion. Some tests are timed but some of them do not have a limit on how long applicant can take to answer the questions, but there might be exceptions.

Excel Skill Assessments through questions

There are different types of questions typically being presented during Excel Test :

• Multiple Choice Questions
• Multiple Answer Questions
• True/False Questions

Interactive Test Simulators

It is rare that only one type of question is used during the test – most of the time questions are part of the large pool and testing software randomly selects certain number of questions from the pool and presents them to the candidate.

Hands-On Excel Skill Assessment

Sometimes companies also conduct hands on Excel Job Interview Test when they provide candidates with sample data file as ask them to perform certain tasks with the data, based on instructions provided.

Excel Skills Tested as Part of Test

During Excel Interview employer assesses candidate’s ability to use Microsoft Excel's user interface quickly and efficiently to access the right features and perform simple tasks in the application. It validates fundamental knowledge from determining the best way to open a recently closed Workbook to using the correct formula to perform automatic calculations. Candidates are required to answer true/false,  multiple-choice questions and multiple answer questions, based on Excel spreadsheets, charts and tables filled with sample data

Below is the list of topics candidates are tested for:

• Follow the correct steps to apply formatting, use formulas or accomplish certain things in spreadsheet
• Apply styles, use simple fill patterns and apply formatting
• Identify the proper keyboard shortcuts to accomplish tasks more quickly.
• Choose the right formula and cell references to automatically calculate values.
• Perform basic tasks like hiding rows, preventing cell overflow, and pasting data.

Since each question comes with a strict time limit (one minute or less), the test will also measure a candidate’s ability to quickly format, isolate and manipulate data under a significant amount of pressure without any outside help.

Hands On Abilities Evaluated

• Ability to edit Excel worksheets and workbook by identifying common functions, applying basic keyboard shortcuts, and manipulating columns and rows
• Ability to apply sorting and filtering options as well as statistical functions to explore and summarize values
• Ability to customize the look and feel of a Excel workbook using cell formatting tools