What It Is
Proficiency in Microsoft Excel for data analysis, financial modeling, reporting, and automation. Despite newer tools, Excel remained essential business skill across industries throughout 2010s-2020s.
The “Excel Expert” Job Requirement
Countless job postings required “advanced Excel skills,” often meaning:
- Pivot tables and charts
- VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP formulas
- Conditional formatting
- Basic macros/VBA
- Data validation
- What-if analysis
Many candidates lied, leading to on-the-spot Excel tests during interviews.
Most Important Formulas
Lookup Functions:
- VLOOKUP (lookup value in table)
- INDEX-MATCH (more flexible than VLOOKUP)
- XLOOKUP (2019+, replaced VLOOKUP)
Logical:
- IF, nested IFs
- AND, OR, NOT
- IFS (2016+)
Text:
- CONCATENATE/CONCAT
- LEFT, RIGHT, MID
- TRIM, CLEAN
Date/Time:
- TODAY, NOW
- DATEDIF
- WORKDAY, NETWORKDAYS
Statistical:
- SUM, SUMIF, SUMIFS
- AVERAGE, AVERAGEIF
- COUNT, COUNTIF, COUNTIFS
- MAX, MIN
Pivot Tables: The Power Tool
Pivot tables let non-technical users analyze data interactively:
- Summarize large datasets
- Cross-tabulate information
- Create dynamic reports
- No formula knowledge required
“Can you make a pivot table?” became interview shorthand for “are you actually proficient?”
Power Query & Power Pivot (2010s)
Microsoft added powerful BI tools to Excel:
- Power Query: data transformation/ETL
- Power Pivot: handle millions of rows
- DAX formulas: advanced calculations
Bridged gap between Excel and dedicated BI tools.
Excel vs Google Sheets
Excel Advantages:
- More powerful for large datasets
- Advanced features (Power Query, VBA)
- Better for complex financial modeling
- Offline capability
Google Sheets Advantages:
- Free
- Real-time collaboration
- Cloud-native, accessible anywhere
- Better for team workflows
- Easier sharing/permissions
The VBA Question
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) let users automate Excel:
- Record macros for repetitive tasks
- Build custom functions
- Create user interfaces
But:
- Considered legacy by 2020s
- Python integration better for serious automation
- Security risks with macro-enabled files