Excel
Microsoft's spreadsheet software — the most widely used data analysis tool in the world, required across virtually every business function.
Excel proficiency ranges from basic data entry to advanced financial modeling with complex formulas, pivot tables, Power Query, and VBA macros. At the intermediate-to-advanced level, Excel remains the primary tool for financial analysis, operational reporting, and business decision-making at companies of every size — particularly in finance, operations, sales, and consulting.
Typical time to job-readiness: ~4 weeks.
Learning Excel
Beginner
Master formulas (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, SUMIF, IF, COUNTIF), basic pivot tables, and simple charts. These cover most non-analyst business roles.
Intermediate
Dynamic dashboards with slicers, Power Query for data transformation, and advanced formulas (INDEX/MATCH, array formulas). Learn to build models that others can actually update.
Advanced
Financial modeling (DCF, sensitivity tables, scenario analysis), VBA macros for automation, and integration with Power BI. Analyst roles are commonly assessed via Excel take-home challenges.
Key concepts
- Formulas: VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP for lookups, SUMIF/COUNTIF for conditional aggregation
- Pivot tables — summarize and group data without writing formulas
- Absolute vs relative cell references ($A$1 vs A1)
- Data validation and named ranges for maintainable models
- Power Query for importing and transforming data from external sources
- Array formulas and dynamic arrays (FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE)
Common interview topics
- Walk me through how you'd build a VLOOKUP (and when you'd use INDEX/MATCH instead)
- How would you remove duplicates and clean a dataset in Excel
- How does a pivot table work and what can you do with it
- Explain the difference between absolute and relative cell references
- How would you build a simple financial model in Excel