Completing an advanced Excel course is a significant achievement. With skills in powerful functions, data analysis, automation, and visualization, you’ve unlocked new capabilities for handling data with precision and speed. But now that you've finished, the real question is: how can you effectively test and apply what you've learned? Here’s a comprehensive guide on testing your Excel skills to ensure that you’re ready to use them in real-world scenarios and continue improving.
1. Revisit Key Concepts to Reinforce Learning
After completing an advanced Excel course, take time to revisit and reinforce core concepts. This step isn’t about relearning everything but solidifying your understanding of essential tools, like:
- Advanced Formulas: Mastery of functions like INDEX/MATCH, array formulas, and logical functions is critical. Set up hypothetical scenarios or real-life projects where these formulas can simplify complex calculations.
- Data Visualization: Create sample charts using advanced features such as conditional formatting, sparklines, and pivot charts to test your visualization abilities.
- Data Manipulation: Utilize tools like Power Query, Power Pivot, and Data Tables to practice reshaping large datasets efficiently.
Revisiting these concepts through practice will give you a solid foundation to build on when testing your skills in new challenges.
2. Build Real-World Projects
Nothing tests your Excel proficiency better than tackling real-world projects. Here are a few project ideas that can help you apply your skills learned from Excel courses online:
- Financial Dashboard: Create a dynamic dashboard that updates based on data inputs, tracking KPIs, financial metrics, and forecasting data. This will help you practice data visualization, conditional formatting, and complex formulas.
- Inventory Management System: Build a system to manage inventory data, calculate restock levels, and track sales patterns. Test your skills with pivot tables, data validation, and lookup functions.
- Automated Reporting: Develop a reporting workbook that pulls data from multiple sheets or external sources and generates summaries with minimal manual input. This project tests VBA and macro skills alongside advanced formulas.
Creating and iterating on real-world projects is one of the most engaging ways to test your online Excel courses knowledge and simulate workplace challenges.
3. Take On Data Challenges
Online platforms like Kaggle, GitHub, and Excel forums host data challenges that range from beginner to advanced levels. These challenges provide structured problems where you can showcase your abilities, work under constraints, and sharpen your critical thinking. Here’s how to get started:
- Kaggle Competitions: Kaggle hosts data competitions in which participants solve complex problems using datasets provided by companies and organizations. Participating in Excel-based competitions helps build problem-solving abilities, especially for data analysis.
- GitHub Projects: Explore Excel repositories on GitHub to find data analysis projects, dashboards, and automation workflows. You can contribute by improving or creating new solutions based on real-life scenarios.
- Excel Practice Sites: Platforms like ExcelJet, MyExcelOnline, and even LinkedIn Learning offer practical exercises and challenges focused on specific skills like data manipulation, pivot tables, and Excel functions.
Working on these challenges lets you test your Excel skills in dynamic settings, see how other Excel professionals approach solutions, and gain fresh insights into complex data problems.
4. Set Up a Portfolio with Case Studies
Creating a portfolio of your completed projects is an excellent way to test your skills and showcase them to potential employers or clients. You can structure your portfolio to highlight different skills, such as:
- Data Cleaning and Transformation: Showcase projects where you applied Power Query to clean and structure raw data.
- Advanced Data Analysis: Present case studies on projects involving complex data calculations and analysis, perhaps with dashboards or reports summarizing findings.
- Automation with Macros: Highlight instances where you’ve used macros or VBA to streamline repetitive tasks.
By curating a portfolio, you get to document your process, assess your skills in action, and improve upon your work as you identify areas for growth. This portfolio can also act as a solid credential when applying for Excel-related roles.
5. Participate in Excel Forums and Communities
Excel communities provide an interactive platform where you can test your skills by helping others with their queries. Active participation in these forums can strengthen your expertise and improve your ability to solve unique challenges. Consider joining:
- Reddit (r/excel): Excel users often post complex questions on Reddit, allowing you to test your skills by helping others find solutions.
- MrExcel Forum: This popular forum hosts a wide range of Excel questions, from beginner issues to advanced problems. Answering questions here is a great way to test and apply your Excel skills in real time.
- LinkedIn Groups and Excel Community Pages: LinkedIn offers many Excel-specific groups where users share advanced tips, post challenges, and collaborate on complex projects.
Engaging with online communities not only allows you to refine your skills but also helps build your reputation in the Excel community.
6. Practice Using Case Studies and Real-World Scenarios
Creating hypothetical case studies based on real-world scenarios is another way to test your advanced Excel skills. For instance:
- Sales Performance Analysis: Create a workbook that tracks and analyzes monthly or quarterly sales for a hypothetical company. Test your data visualization skills by representing key metrics through charts and dashboards.
- Budgeting and Forecasting: Build a budgeting model to project monthly expenses and revenue for a department or company. Use advanced functions, sensitivity analysis, and scenario planning to make the model dynamic and user-friendly.
- Customer Insights: Use hypothetical customer data to create a model for segmentation and analysis. This case study will test your data manipulation skills, along with advanced functions like COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, and dynamic arrays.
These case studies help you engage deeply with your Excel skills and understand how they apply to professional business needs.
7. Take Advanced Excel Skill Assessments Online
Many websites offer Excel skill assessments that simulate real-world situations and test different skill levels. These assessments usually include multiple-choice questions and hands-on tasks, providing immediate feedback. Some platforms that offer these tests are:
- LinkedIn Skill Assessments: LinkedIn provides an Excel assessment that, if passed, can be displayed on your profile. This is a quick way to verify your skill level in Excel.
- Microsoft Excel Certification Exams: Microsoft offers certifications like the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) in Excel, which is globally recognized. Passing this exam will test your mastery of Excel and give you a certified credential.
- Online Course Assessments: Many online Excel courses come with final assessments and practice tests. Reattempt these exams to gauge your progress after completing the course.
These assessments will help you understand how well you’ve absorbed your training and pinpoint any areas where you may need additional practice.
8. Utilize Excel for Personal Projects
Bringing Excel into your personal life for budgeting, habit tracking, or personal goal management can be an enjoyable way to test your skills. Here are a few project ideas:
- Monthly Budget Tracker: Build a dynamic budget tracker that uses Excel’s financial functions, data validation, and conditional formatting to keep track of income, expenses, and savings goals.
- Goal Tracking Dashboard: Set up a personal goals dashboard to track progress, create visual reminders, and apply data visualization techniques.
- Fitness and Health Tracker: Use Excel to monitor fitness goals, track workout routines, or create meal planning sheets. This allows you to test functions like SUMIF, AVERAGEIF, and trend analysis tools.
These personal projects give you a practical way to test your Excel skills in a real-life setting, making the learning process both productive and enjoyable.
9. Take Part in Online Excel Competitions
Excel competitions challenge you with time constraints, unique problems, and sometimes even head-to-head matches with other Excel users. Here are some ways to get involved:
- Global Excel Summit: This event occasionally hosts competitions where participants can showcase their Excel skills in front of a global audience.
- Excel Hash Competitions: Organized by the Excel community on platforms like YouTube, Excel Hash competitions challenge participants to use specific functions and features in creative ways.
- Financial Modeling Competitions: For those interested in finance, several platforms host financial modeling competitions that require strong Excel skills and business insight.
Competitions can be highly motivating, letting you test your skills in a high-stakes environment while pushing you to become a superlearner in Excel.
10. Continue Learning Through Advanced Excel Resources
Even after completing an advanced Excel course, there’s always room to expand your knowledge further. Engage with the following resources:
- YouTube Tutorials and Webinars: Channels like ExcelIsFun and Leila Gharani offer tutorials on new features, tips, and tricks in Excel.
- Excel Blogs: Websites like ExcelJet, Chandoo, and MyExcelOnline consistently publish tutorials and challenges that can push your skills further.
- Additional Online Courses: Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning offer specialized online Excel courses that focus on topics like data science, finance, and advanced data visualization.
Pursuing further resources helps reinforce existing knowledge while introducing you to new techniques and Excel capabilities.
Conclusion
Testing your skills after an advanced Excel course is essential to ensure you’re well-prepared to apply your knowledge in real-world scenarios. By working on real projects, engaging in online communities, tackling case studies, and taking on assessments, you’ll gain confidence in your abilities and strengthen your Excel expertise. Remember, Excel mastery is a journey, not a destination. With consistent practice and a proactive approach, you can not only retain but expand the skills you’ve learned, positioning yourself as a true Excel expert ready to tackle any data challenge that comes your way.
