MS Excel

Beginner Level Skill: Lay the foundation for effective spreadsheet management, focusing on essential functionalities for daily tasks.
Intermediate skills: Can elevate a user's ability to analyse and present data, making them valuable for data interpretation and preliminary analysis roles.
Advanced Level skills: Crucial for data analysts, financial analysts, and roles that demand deep data manipulation, complex modelling, and automation to inform strategic decision-making.

MS Excel syllabus for the basic course includes - basics of Microsoft Office Excel, calculations, worksheet modification, formatting a worksheet, and printing and managing workbooks. The advanced MS Excel course syllabus includes - working with multiple sheets and workbooks, sharing and protecting workbooks, lookup formulas and formula auditing, creating sparklines and mapping data, automating workbook functionality, and forecasting data.

Some of the popular MS Excel certifications and courses include:

• Excel Certification Courses (E-LearnExcel)
• Microsoft Excel Certifications (Microsoft)
• Introduction to Data Analysis using Excel (Coursera)
• Excel Certification (LinkedIn Learning)
• Excel Essentials: The Complete Excel Series (Udemy)
• Microsoft Excel Class for Beginner to Advanced Learners (Udemy)
• Macquarie University's Excel Skills for Business Certification (Coursera)
• Microsoft's Analyzing and Visualizing Data With Excel (edX)
• Microsoft Excel Classes—Basic and Advanced (GoSkills)
• Introduction to Data Analysis Using Excel (Rice University)

If one wants to go for the Excel certification, there are no educational prerequisites. Anyone can learn excel and get a certificate as long as they find it interesting and want to make some career growth by upskilling, MS Excel is one of the most fundamental skills freshers can mention in their resumes. On the contrary, professionals working on higher positions can pursue it as well.

To conclude, anyone can go for an Excel course if they want to upskill, irrespective of their career stage. One should never stop learning.

The job profiles one can join after getting MS Excel certifications are - MIS Executive, Data Analyst, Financial Analyst, Metrics and Analytics Specialist, Market Research Analyst, Big Data Solution Architect, Big Data Analytics Architect, and Big Data Engineer.

MS Excel is a vast field offering various jobs in the current market scenario, especially college students should focus on their excel skills as their computer applications skills are often what sets them apart from their peers during the placement season.

The usage of MS Excel includes - task management, time management, data entry, data management, programming, charting and graphing, accounting, financial analysis, CRM, and financial modeling. It caters to hundreds of corporate, government, academic institutes administrations on a daily basis. It has become one of the top most skills expected out of college graduates irrespective of their major. Excel is used in almost every field of every specialisation to make data management a seamless process.

• MS Excel has a cell-based structure. It organizes data in cells across rows and columns, facilitating easy data entry and formatting.
• Excel offers a vast library of built-in statistical, financial, and text data manipulation functions.
• PivotTables enable quick summarisation and analysis of large data sets, enhancing data comprehension.
• It provides a variety of chart types and visualisation tools to illustrate data trends and patterns.
• Highlights essential values based on user-defined criteria, making data stand out for quick analysis.
• Supports automation of repetitive tasks and customization through Visual Basic for Applications.

1. Choose a course based on your preferred learning style (structured platform vs. free YouTube tutorials).

2. Visit the course website  (e.g., Coursera, Udemy, edX, YouTube).

3. Sign up or create an account on the platform.

4. Enroll in the course  (paid or free options available).

5. Start learning at your own pace, using downloadable practice files and quizzes to reinforce skills.