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Excel guides

These are the long reads: what employers test, how finance teams use Excel, which lookup to pick, how IF formulas and dates work, how to clean up messy data and which shortcuts are worth learning. Every guide ends with the exercises and tests that drill what it explains, so you can read a section and then prove you can do it.

  1. Excel for job interviews: what gets tested and how to prepare

    What employer Excel tests ask, the formulas that come up again and again, how the timer changes your approach, and a two-week plan to get ready.12 min read

  2. How to learn Excel: a practice plan from your first formula to job-ready

    A practical order for learning Excel, from cells and SUM to lookups and summary tables, with how long each stage takes and how to practice so it sticks.12 min read

  3. VLOOKUP vs XLOOKUP vs INDEX MATCH: which lookup to use

    How VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP and INDEX with MATCH work, where each one breaks, and which to use in a test, an old workbook or a sheet you are building today.11 min read

  4. Pivot tables explained, and the formulas that do the same job

    What a pivot table computes, how to build one step by step, the problems that trip people up, and how to get the same summaries with SUMIF, COUNTIF and SUMIFS.12 min read

  5. Excel for finance and accounting: the skills you actually use

    The Excel skills finance and accounting teams use every day, from SUMIFS on a ledger and budget variances to rounding, month-end dates, PMT, NPV and check totals.11 min read

  6. Excel IF formulas: from one condition to many

    How IF works, how to combine conditions with AND and OR, when to nest IFs or switch to IFS, and how to fix the IF mistakes that give wrong answers without an error.12 min read

  7. Dates in Excel: how they work and the formulas you need

    Why Excel stores dates as numbers, how to add days and months, find month-ends and working days, work out ages, and fix dates that arrive as text.12 min read

  8. How to clean data in Excel with formulas

    Fix messy exports with formulas. Remove extra spaces, fix capitals, split names and codes, join columns, find duplicates and turn text into real numbers.12 min read

  9. Excel keyboard shortcuts worth learning, and how to make them stick

    The Excel shortcuts that save real time, for Windows and Mac, in the order to learn them, and a short daily drill that makes them automatic.12 min read

  10. Google Sheets vs Excel: what is the same, what is different, and how to switch

    Where Google Sheets and Excel work the same, where they differ, from QUERY and ARRAYFORMULA to sharing and limits, and what to learn when you switch.12 min read

Good to know

How to use the guides

Read a guide once from top to bottom, then go back to the sections you need. The worked examples show real sheets with the result in place, and every formula is checked against Excel's behavior before it goes on the page.

Reading alone does not make you fast. When a guide mentions a function or a skill, it links to the exercise that drills it, and the practice block at the end lists them in order. Do those exercises the same day, while the idea is fresh.

Who they are for

Job seekers with an Excel test coming up, people starting in finance, accounting or admin roles, and anyone who uses Excel every day but learned it by trial and error.

The guides assume you can open a workbook and type into a cell. If you have never written a formula, start with the free Getting started section of the exercises and come back.