Microsoft Excel^® Skills

What is a Pre-Employment Excel Skills Test?

The globalization of the digital economy has touched every industry. As a result, computer proficiency is now a “must have” instead of a “nice to have” for many jobs. In 2002, only 44% of U.S. jobs required medium-high digital skill levels; by 2016, 70% did. Economists say that if the U.S. could train a mere five million workers for digital employment during the next five years, it would add an estimated $250 billion to U.S. GDP growth.

Microsoft Excel® is the most popular computer application for business, personal, and educational use. Studies show Excel is used by 99.99% of businesses worldwide and in over 731,000 companies across the U.S. According to a Statista survey, 86% of the market researchers respondents said that they use MS Excel®.

People entering the job force are told Excel skills qualify them for more jobs and careers, even if they do not have a college degree. They are also told they can increase their earning potential by around 12% if they have good Excel skills.

Excel is so popular because virtually every employee must gather, manage, and store information. Formatting spreadsheets offers them an easy way to do this and helps them organize and present data so colleagues and stakeholders can easily understand it. Managers depend on Excel to create financial, sales, and inventory reports to make decisions that impact strategy and set growth goals.

Everyone in an organization—from data entry clerks to senior executives, is required to organize and manage data. Therefore, organizations need employees who can:

• Set up and format spreadsheets to sort, organize, and classify data
• Know how to use commonly used formulas and functions
• Enter data accurately to prepare reports such as financial statements and sales forecasts
• Understand how to use advanced features such as macros and pivot tables
• Compile detailed reports such as manufacturing and database analyses

Thus, businesses worldwide in every industry administer Excel tests for interview candidates while hiring. Reviewing the results when a candidate takes an Excel test online can ensure candidates have good computer proficiency and critical data management skills and experience. 

What is on a Pre-Employment Excel Test?

HR leaders often ask what is on a basic Excel test.  We tell them an online Excel skills test helps recruiters assess candidates’ ability to perform basic Excel functions such as creating and using formulas, performing math calculations, creating reports, and formatting cells (i.e., changing a font, changing a decimal to a percent, or modifying cell and border alignment.)

HR leaders also use Excel skills tests to test applicants’ knowledge of advanced features such as setting up macros to automate Excel functions, using pivot tables to reorganize information and find and extract data, using VLOOKUP to locate values and retrieve data from a specific row or column, and applying statistical modeling functions to perform regression analyses and create histograms.

How do you Test Excel in an Interview?

Businesses worldwide use an industry-leading assessment solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM to administer online Excel skills tests. Following are some ways they use Excel tests for interviewing candidates to verify applicants’ knowledge and experience. 

• Comprehensive Assessment Library: The eSkill Assessment Library contains hundreds of validated job- and subject-based skills tests. In addition to using Excel Skills Tests for different release years, HR leaders can use other assessments such as Data Checking, Data Proofing, and Numerical Proofreading to make good hiring decisions. 

• Customize Excel Skills Tests: A one-size-fits-all online Excel Skills Test is not always practical since every company has different needs. With the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM, HR professionals can create assessments tailored for each job role.
  
  They can choose a pre-prepared basic Excel test for interview candidates, set the difficulty level, and add or remove questions as needed. They can also create their assessments by selecting questions from multiple skills tests. For example, if the hiring team for a medical institution was hiring data entry operators, recruiters could build an assessment using questions from the Excel Skills Test, Medical Typing, Medical Terminology, and Typing 10-Key Data Entry assessments. They also have the option to add proprietary content if needed.

• Custom Simulations: The quickest way to identify top applicants is to ask them to complete job-related tasks and evaluate their performance. Clients who use the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM can use Excel simulations to ask applicants to perform tasks they would do during a typical workday and confirm they have the skills required for a job. 

Regarding what is on a basic Excel test, basic Excel tests for interviewing candidates can be used to evaluate applicants’ ability to format spreadsheets, use formulas and functions, add and delete rows and columns, format cells, add and delete sheets and manage Workbooks. Questions included on an advanced Excel test for interviews might require applicants to set up macros, use pivot tables to find and extract data, and use VLOOKUP to locate values on a spreadsheet. 

How Online Excel Skills Tests Improve Employee Development

Many training and employee development managers ask what is usually on an Excel assessment and if it is possible to use online Excel skills tests to improve training and employee development. They can. Training and employee development leaders mention these benefits when we ask how they use the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM to improve training.

• Expedite New Hire Onboarding: Training and learning managers use Excel skills tests to onboard new hires. It is counterproductive to require new employees to complete training covering skills they have mastered. HR and learning leaders can review applicants’ assessment results to see what new employees already know and focus training in areas where they need more help.

• Identify Knowledge and Skills Gaps: Training and employee development leaders use Excel skills tests to identify and address skills gaps among current staff. Once they pinpoint areas where employees need more training, they can develop personalized training programs that address deficient areas.

• Upskilling and Reskilling: Experts say the current talent shortage is here for the foreseeable future. So, businesses need to find “hidden” talent within their ranks. Employee development leaders use online Excel skills tests to identify employees who are candidates for promotions or could be with more training. They are also launching upskilling and reskilling programs that address future employment needs.

• Leverage Training to Improve Retention: Employees want organizations to help them reach their career goals and will look elsewhere if their current company does not address their needs. According to an HR Daily Advisor study, 71% of employees said they would leave a job if the company did not take an interest in their personal and career development. 

Is There an Online Excel Test?

Organizations are becoming increasingly dependent on databases, which means employees must be able to compile, manipulate, and manage information. Online Excel skills tests provide hiring teams with measurable data on all job applicants so they can identify top candidates with these abilities and weed out unqualified applicants.

Online Excel skills test results are more reliable than traditional hiring tools like resumes and interviews. They improve hiring outcomes because managers can make data-driven hiring decisions. Here’s how:

• Verify Skills and Experience: Any candidate can list advanced-level Excel skills on their resume or claim to have them during an interview. However, recruiters cannot assume the information is correct because over 77% of applicants embellish their qualifications on their resumes and during interviews, and around 65% overstate their capabilities when they apply for highly sought-after jobs.

• Minimize Hiring Mistakes: Hiring mistakes are every manager’s worst nightmare because they waste money, hurt productivity, and harm staff morale. As a LinkedIn study shows, a bad hire can cost anywhere from $17,000 to $240,000, including recruiting expenses, staff disruption, loss of customer confidence, incomplete projects, and potential litigation.

• Improve Hiring Efficiency: Organizations can reduce hiring costs and decrease initial screening time, which eliminates the hours hiring teams would typically spend manually reviewing resumes and scheduling interviews. Many eSkill clients have cut hiring costs by about 70% and expedited time-to-hire by around 60%.

• Improve Employee Retention: Losing a top employee can cost a company up to twice the employee’s salary. For technical jobs, the cost can be 100–150% of the employee’s salary and as high as 213% for C-level employees. So, organizations want to hire high-performing employees who will stay for years. A good first step is to use skills, cognitive tests and behavioral assessments to hire top candidates with the right experience and who are a good cultural fit for their organization.

Why Organizations Need Excel Skills Tests

Just about every global organization uses spreadsheets. So, employers need an easy way to assess applicants’ Excel proficiency. Microsoft Excel skills tests offer hiring teams an excellent way to evaluate and screen applicants because they provide measurable data about candidates’ abilities. These are some ways organizations benefit by using online Excel skills tests.

• Ensure Applicants Are Qualified: HR and hiring managers are accustomed to judging candidates based on their education and past work experience and relying on a gut feel. This can lead to expensive hiring mistakes, hindering productivity and deflates staff morale. Many HR professionals can identify with this situation because they hired candidates who claimed to possess experience in critical skill areas and found the candidate could not perform.

• Find Qualified Candidates in a Limited Talent Pool: Organizations across all industry sectors have found the past few years challenging. First, they had to change how they conduct business to accommodate COVID-19. Then they had to cope with many supply chain issues to fill orders and keep customers happy. They are now battling a talent shortage that has been growing for the past decade and shows no signs of ending. As a result, it is difficult to recruit qualified candidates to fill critical roles.Much of this problem is due to a misalignment between candidates’ abilities and employers’ requirements. The skills employers seek have changed because they have upgraded their technology and implemented digital transformation initiatives. However, applicants’ skills have not kept pace. The result is a skills gap so acute that 71% of CEOs believe a skills shortage will be their most significant business challenge in the near future.

• Maintain Their Competitive Edge: HR teams that must recruit talent with basic computer proficiency depend on Excel skills tests to hire top candidates. They know this is essential to maintain their competitive edge and identify internal talent to fill current and future roles.

• Minimize Subjective Bias: Skills assessments help businesses minimize unconscious or subjective bias. Unconscious bias refers to attitudes and stereotypes that influence hiring team members’ decisions. It would be wonderful if all hiring teams judged candidates fairly and impartially. However, research shows that unconscious bias can enter into even the best-managed hiring processes. This is backed by research that shows 79% of HR professionals agree that subjective bias exists in recruitment and succession planning decisions.

Unconscious bias can be unintentional preferential treatment. For example, a hiring team member may favor a specific candidate because they had similar experiences growing up, attended the same university, or enjoy the same hobbies. It can also occur if a hiring team member has a preconceived opinion about the type of person who can do a particular job. For example, an interviewer can’t visualize a woman as Director of Software Engineering or Construction Manager or an African American as CFO or Director of Operations.

Using assessments such as Excel skills tests minimizes the chance that unconscious bias will compromise hiring decisions because the tests emphasize candidates’ skills and abilities. HR teams and hiring managers make hiring decisions based on hard data instead of conventional tools like resumes, applications, and interviews. Organizations also know they can avoid legal challenges since their hiring practices comply with industry and federal regulations.

Get Started with Excel Skills Tests for Hiring and Training

Businesses know that assessments such as Excel skills tests help them identify, hire, and retain top talent and find outstanding employees they can upskill and reskill.

Do you want to learn how Excel Skills Tests can help you improve hiring and training outcomes? Contact us to request a demo.