Excel Assessment – Measures of Competencies for the Job
Excel Assessment can be designed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an employee in the use of the software. There are positions that require a higher level of competency in using Microsoft Excel. These include accounting related jobs. There are also jobs that require intermediate knowledge of the productivity tool. Sales related positions belong to this category because of the use of Excel in the manipulation and presentation of data using charts and graphs.
Designing an Excel Assessment to measure an employee’s level of competency is useful for training needs assessment as well as for performance evaluation. The three levels – basic, intermediate and advanced – can be defined to cover specific skills that an employee should demonstrate. Basic Excel skills are needed to perform work in manipulating data in worksheets. The simple ability to enter data, correct it, format data and worksheet, modify a workbook, print a worksheet and use the basic icons for specific purposes are basic Excel competencies for general office applications. The intermediate level includes competencies on manipulating multiple worksheets, filtering data, using integrate functions and simple manipulation of databases. This means that there should be an understanding on the concept of databases to better implement the use of charts and lists in Excel. Advanced skills include the ability to use techniques to analyze and manipulate different kinds of Excel data. It also includes showing the ability to automate some specific operations though the use of Macro commands and be able to manage them. The design of the Excel Assessment material will be easy with the clear definition of the three skill levels.
In the Excel Assessment for each level, a written Excel exam and hands-on test will be necessary to test on the understanding of concepts and being able to apply them. For reference materials, there are available online Excel test s that can be used to measure the specific competency levels.
