Am I an expert in Excel?

Functionality mastered:
- Spreading financial statements
- Numerous functions
- Graphs
- Formatting
- V / H LOOK UP
- Pivot tables
- External web data import
- Logic (If Statements)
- VBA / Macros

On the sample resume I am looking at it says expert in Excel and I wondered if that was something I could honestly say. I am not sure what else within Excel there is for me to learn.

12 Comments
 

To be honest "mastering excel" is more about speed and accuracy.

If you are in college we already assume that the person actually doesn't know much about how to use excel, in terms of speed and accuracy. So even if you wrote "mastery of excel" versus "excel" no one is really going to give you serious credit for it.

Also after 2 years on the job, excel "mastery" is assumed so again it becomes a meaningless bullet point.

Can you accurately make say 50 small changes to ppt/word/excel document in less than 10 minutes? Then sure you're good to go, but again no one is going to give you credit so wouldn't worry about it just say proficient in MS word/excel/ppt.

 

i would maybe change it to advanced excel or something like that. but by the looks of it, i'd say you are definitely very capable in excel. "mastery" is a term i think only a few people can use for excel, and maybe you're one of them, but i think it'll make you come off as a bit cocky on your resume.

Remember, once you're inside you're on your own. Oh, you mean I can't count on you? No. Good!
 

as an aside, since i would consider myself pretty proficient in excel, but probably not as advanced as you are, how did you go about mastering all these functions?

Remember, once you're inside you're on your own. Oh, you mean I can't count on you? No. Good!
 
Best Response
WallStreetPlayboysExpert at excel is not going to change an interview at all.

Would always stick to the standard "Proficient in MS Word, Excel, PPt" under "skills" section.

Should he add "fluent in English" as well? I never understand the point of adding "MS Office" or "Proficient in MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint" when every single other person does.

Anyway, don't put you're an expert. I guarantee you there are still plenty of things you do not know how to do. Are you an "expert" with arrays, index and match, etc.?

 

^^ Its just a general filler comment that people put in. No one uses it to determine if you're getting an interview anyway is the real point of the post.

If you have previous banking experience, internship of course "Factset, Bloomberg, CAPIQ" would stand out much more. Sounds like this is a nitty gritty question, again your excel "expert" "average" etc is just filler and no one really cares just don't put "best ever in MS office"

Hope that clears things up.

Similarly once you have a few years of experience no one even really reads the skills section, just glance at it to see if you have licenses, are MBA or not, CFA etc.

 

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