MS Excel

Bookworm55

I'm sure we all use Microsoft Excel to varying degrees at work.

I'm looking at my CV and trying to judge how best to express my level of Excel skills, and seek suggestions.

Do words like "advanced" and "intermediate" have any kind of particular meanings in this context, or is it down to a subjective assessment of one's own ability?
Is it worth picking up a course like the ECDL to be less subjective?

Monsoon

That's a good question. Personally I wouldn't bother with ECDL, but that's just me.

In my world, I'd define the following Excel skills:

Basic - data entry, basic maths formulae
Intermediate - More complex formulae e.g IF, AND. Linking between worksheets/ workbooks, knowing various shortcuts,.
Advanced - I don't know, it's stuff I can't do!

Excel is so vast, there are many functions we just don't need. Intermediate spans a whole load of things, I probably consider myself being the lower end of intermediate. I would guess it's very subjective though.

Marga

i would put on the CV :

IT:

Wide (basic/intermidiate/advance) knowledge and experience on Microsoft Excel including formulae/pivot tables/macros.

depending the level you think you are at

Primble

why dont you say you are confident/ comfortably using it rather than intermediate/ advanced. as what one person sees as intermediate may be more advance for another.

Paul C

If you can do complex pivot tables, formula that look up information from tables, "if" statements, macro's etc then you would probably be advanced. If you put advanced then you may leave yourself open to techie excel questions in interviews.

blobbyh

Pretty much all of what Paul said above but I'd also add complex conditional formatting and the ability to concatenate/combine multiple formulae to that list. I'd also say that the best spreadsheets hide their ingenuity under the hood and usability is often as important as the fancy formulae that are within it.

On a side note, it's also vital to not get too carried away with Excel as I've see two people in my working life, who though extremely skilled at it, got overly hung up with their own genius when they should really have been using other bespoke software programs.

As Paul advises, only ever say Intermediate as you may encounter Excel nerds who spend all their waking moments, in and out of work, thinking about building up complex sheets and inventing non-existent problems just so they can duly solve them.

Paul C

"On a side note, it's also vital to not get too carried away with Excel as I've see two people in my working life, who though extremely skilled at it, got overly hung up with their own genius when they should really have been using other bespoke software programs.
"

This is so true Robert! They should put it as a warning on the Excel box........