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Job interview prep
Many finance, operations, admin and analyst roles include a short Excel test. They tend to ask the same dozen skills: lookups, conditional sums, IF logic, pivots and some formatting. Take a timed mock test in a real spreadsheet, see exactly which skills need work, then fix them with the matching lesson.
The mock test has one task for each of these skills. If you miss one, the results page links you straight to the lesson.
Absolute references
Copy a formula down without it breaking: lock a rate or total with $ (F4).
SUMIFS
Total sales for one region and one product, or within a date range.
IF logic
Flag rows: bonus or no bonus, pass or fail, nested or combined with AND / OR.
VLOOKUP
Pull a price or name from another table by ID. The single most-asked skill.
XLOOKUP
The modern lookup: left lookups, a default when nothing is found.
INDEX + MATCH
The classic two-way lookup many employers still test.
Error handling
Wrap lookups in IFERROR / IFNA so the sheet shows a clean message.
Text functions
Split and join names and codes with LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN and CONCAT.
Dates
Ages, tenure and days between dates with DATEDIF and date maths.
Sort and filter
Sort by one or more columns and filter to the rows that matter.
Most pre-employment Excel tests are either a timed online assessment with short tasks, like this one, or a workbook you are sent and asked to complete in an hour or two. Either way you are judged on getting the right answer with a sensible formula, not on memorising menu names.
Expect a data table of a few hundred rows (sales, staff, inventory) and questions such as “What were total sales for the North region in March?”, “Look up each employee’s department”, or “Which products are below their reorder level?”.
Day 1: take the mock test cold to find your gaps. Days 2 to 5: work through the lessons for the skills you missed; each lesson has hands-on tasks graded as you go. Day 6: take a different version of the mock test. Day 7: do the shortcut drill so you are quick, and finish a real-world project to practise on a bigger sheet.
In the test itself, read each question twice, check one answer by hand, and use absolute references ($) whenever you copy a formula down.
Yes. Everyone can take all three versions. Without Premium, a few pivot, formatting and sort tasks come from the free preview of those lessons rather than the harder later tasks.
No. The test runs in a live spreadsheet in your browser with real formulas, sorting, filters, pivot tables and conditional formatting.
The mock test uses a 70% pass mark. Hiring managers rarely publish a pass mark, but if you can score 70% or more here within the time limit you are in good shape for a typical assessment.
No. They are original practice tasks that cover the same skills commonly found in pre-employment Excel tests. Employers write or license their own questions.
VLOOKUP (or XLOOKUP), SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF, IFERROR and pivot tables come up most. INDEX/MATCH, text functions and date differences are common in analyst roles.
Ready to see where you stand?
Take the mock test