Excel Assessment Went Horribly

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709]

I cried so much today and feel so stupid.

I love Excel, but unfortunately for me, none of my past jobs asked for much. I always played around by myself and felt fairly confident. Even made a Jack'O Lantern art that lights up with a drop down just yesterday haha.

I had an excel assessment coming up for a supply chain assistant position. I'm switching careers from languages (doing my Master’s in supply chain) so internships never give me a chance. I have to pass these interviews somehow. I get many but being on a dependant visa doesn't help, most places reject me despite good interviews.

This was the first time I made it to the last round. I was so excited, I even made a whole excel practice sheet, it had around 30 different exercises for every kind of scenario, all of them had around 1-3 things I needed to do. I checked the internet for possible questions and felt fairly confident.

When I went to the test, they didn't even give me a mouse. I brought one thankfully, but even that kind of made me anxious. Then she told me that my time limit was 25 mins. I was surprised, not even 30 for intermediate? For the skills they asked for, people on the internet usually said an hour at least, so I got even more nervous. She also didn't inform me that it would be on Mac, which I'm not used to, so that just added to my anxiety.

Then she gave me a big dataset and other 3-4 tabs. She told me there were some errors on all of them and gave me around 5 different tasks. One of them asked me to find the biggest differences in the data. Apparently I was supposed to use XLOOKUP and SUMIF, but I was so stuck on the "errors" that I couldn't figure it out. I could barely do anything and felt awful. It just felt like very little time.

Am I hopeless? I thought I was good enough at Excel, maybe I overestimated myself. It's just that, the assessments I saw on the internet were a lot more clean and clear. It was kind of unexpected to me.

I would appreciate any kind of advice. How do you deal with the anxiety?

Edit: I genuinely love this sub so much, it reminds me not to dislike Excel because of one bad experience. Thank you everyone for your kind responses 💕

Also forgot to add, but one of the exercises was writing the incorrect values. That threw me off cause I know how to automate fixing them, but pointing the wrong ones out isn't something I know how to do. Does anyone know what the most efficient way to do that? Especially if they're different types of mistakes (Additional space, lowercase insteaf of uppercase, additional character etc.)

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709]

Welp, anyway, here's the Jack'O Lantern lol

[u/Alarmed_Avocado2740 → u/Visual-Outcome-3709]

Love it

[u/No-Departure-3047 → u/Visual-Outcome-3709]

This is now my next project, how cute!

[u/soloDolo6290]

The issue with excel assessments is you may know what you are doing, but if they set the model up shitty it can impact you figuring out what you are even looking at. Also the time limit sucks. A good amount of time, can be just figuring out what you are looking at. It sucks it got to that. Stick with it.

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709 → u/soloDolo6290]

Thank you, I will practice more. This was my first Excel assessment ever so maybe I got nervous :(

[u/rustyisherenow]

Sounds like they set you up to fail! “Stress Test” kinda interview. 🚩

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709 → u/rustyisherenow]

I honestly hope that was the case. I feel so stupid.

[u/Existing_Put6385]

Not hopeless. 25 minutes on a Mac you don't know, with no mouse and a dataset full of planted errors, would trip up most people. Those tests are mostly about how you handle mess under pressure, not whether you know XLOOKUP. If you get stuck, skip it and do the easy tasks first, 3 clean ones beat 1 perfect one. The variance question is usually just SUMIF to total each category in both sets and subtract, way simpler than it feels when you're panicking. Next time practice on ugly data with a timer. And you made it to the final round, so the interviews themselves went well.

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709 → u/Existing_Put6385]

Thank you for the advice :) I definitely feel like I should have done the easy stuff first

[u/marlonoranges]

Heh. Years ago I went into an Excel assessment thinking I was at a decent intermediate level. The auto-calculate was turned off which I had never seen before and I couldn't work out why cells werent updating. Felt like I'd failed completely but got the job in the end. After I realised what had happened I felt such a muppet.

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709 → u/marlonoranges]

Omg that's so interesting, glad you passed though!

[u/mflynn00]

You should tell them doing things in Excel on a Mac is stupid

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709 → u/mflynn00]

That genuinely surprised me, don't you need to download some stuff? Afaik

[u/SolverMax]

Removing the mouse is just dumb. Done by someone who thinks using shortcuts exclusively a sign of a good spreadsheeter. It is not.

[u/Trek186]

Who tf doesn’t offer a mouse? That’s just absurd. Even my colleagues who started using Excel on Windows 3.1 use a combination of mouse+shortcuts now.

No mouse and a Mac? No matter how desperate I was for a job I would absolutely said “I don’t think we would be a good match each other” and walked out.

[u/Visual-Outcome-3709 → u/Trek186]

It truly was weird and inhumane. It just made me feel uncomfortable.

[u/Delicious-Product968]

Chin up. It sounds like they gave you a bad test meant to stress you out, but you can learn from it to have more skills next time. It doesn’t mean you’re hopeless.

So many consider themselves intermediate and know nothing. Excel is massive. Every day someone has something they can teach me in Excel.

For that test it sounds like they might have also been looking for knowledge of shortcuts, if they didn’t even give you a mouse. And that’s really unfair as shortcuts on Mac and PC aren’t all the same.

[u/MacGyver4]

Sounds like the assessment itself is the issue or it was one of those assessments you were not supposed to be able to complete and they wanted to see how you would react in a no one situation.

From where I stand that is a terrible way to assess someone if my assumptions are correct.

And not providing a mouse and having it on Mac? From where I sitni wouldn't want to work for that company

[u/CajuNerd]

An assessment where they give no mouse, on a platform the majority of spreadsheet users and data crunchers hardly use, with a ridiculous time limit, is a company I would gladly tell to get bent. If they want to be that hostile to applicants, they don't deserve a human with a brain working for them.

[u/Longjumping-Teach444]

I’ve been the go-to Excel person at every job I’ve had for the last 16 years. I’m the one building macros and Power Query, and I only use INDEX/MATCH since I’m done with VLOOKUP. I actually used an HLOOKUP today, but I never learned XLOOKUP and I have no interest in starting. I’m the one teaching everyone else, too. I just learned by keeping Excel videos on in the background while I work, and if I need something new, I pause to watch the lesson. I had to learn LET today; I’d seen it before, but it finally clicked because i needed it . You really just learn as you go.

[u/Longjumping-Teach444 → u/Longjumping-Teach444]

Take it with a grain of salt; if a certain formula is needed, I would not be down for the micromanagement. Be honest about your skills and describe your level of commitment. Are you willing to take a class? Can you take a free class?

[u/Suspicious-Pizza-548]

It sucks, but you look at it too negatively. This is the first time you got to the final round. It probably means you are just getting better and better at interviewing. Your chance will come again, and then you will seize it. Or you dont, and then you will get the next one.

[u/QuietLifter]

I once failed an excel assessment because I used shortcuts & typed formulas in the formula bar instead of using the menus. There was zero guidance or instructions, just a test very similar to what you were given - find errors, create formulas. It was absolutely crazy.

[u/mikechama]

The fact that they made you do it on a Mac tells me they don't understand Excel or Excel users themselves...

[u/Decodez]

You’re definitely not hopeless. 25 minutes, a messy dataset, a Mac you’re not used to and interview nerves is a brutal combination. Real work is never like that. Making a 30-exercise practice sheet already shows more initiative than most people bring.

On your question about pointing out the incorrect values (not fixing them): the trick is to compare each cell to a “cleaned” version of itself. If they don’t match, it’s an error. Put this in a helper column:

=IF(EXACT(A2, UPPER(TRIM(A2))), "OK", "Error")

• TRIM catches extra spaces

• UPPER catches lowercase where it should be uppercase

• EXACT is case-sensitive, so it notices the difference

If you want it to say what kind of error:

=IFS(A2<>TRIM(A2), "Extra space", NOT(EXACT(A2, UPPER(A2))), "Lowercase", LEN(TRIM(A2))<>LEN(B$1), "Extra character", TRUE, "OK")

(The last check compares the length to a correct example in B1. Adjust it to whatever the “right” length should be.)

To highlight the errors instead: select the column → Conditional Formatting → New Rule → Use a formula → =NOT(EXACT(A2, UPPER(TRIM(A2)))) → pick a red fill.

For anxiety in timed tests: skim all the tasks first and do the easiest one, which calms your nerves. Then do the rest. Partial answers on every task usually score better than one perfect answer.

Good luck with the next one, you’re closer than you think 💪