Excel help

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JParker

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My guess is that Deuce's resume lists:
-advanced Excel skills;
-strong programming skills in VBA;
-advanced statistical ability.

And judging by this thread he may have over-exagerated his strengths.

Dermot81 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think if the employer wanted deucefranchise to
> complete this "test" strictly without any outside
> help, then he would have had him do it within the
> office itself --ofcourse it would have to be on a
> smaller scale so deuce could finish within a
> reasonable amount of time, while still being
> detailed enough to convey whether he has a good
> grasp on the concept or not.
>
> Instead, the way I see it, since the interviewer
> gave deuce this assignment to take home, he is
> testing deuce's resourcefulness. Obviously when
> deuce gets called back for the second round, if he
> has no idea how the distribution he built works,
> the interviewer will see through that.
 
"If I were the potential employer, and I found out that you had asked for (and received) outside help - unless I had explicitly told you that it was o.k. - I wouldn't consider your candidacy any further. They're testing YOUR excel skills, not your problem solving ability."

Obviously asking someone else for help or using someone else's work/spreadsheets is outside help, but where does using the "Excel Help" section fall, or using an Excel book?

I've never had a take-home Excel test, but I have taken several Excel tests during job interviews, where they know that you don't have outside resources available to you.

Personally, I'd say that knowing where to find the information in Excel's Help section or an Excel book and learn it quickl shows the kind of initiative and ability to be resourceful and learn quickly that I'd want to see in an analyst - but I'm interested in other people's opinions.
 
"Personally, I'd say that knowing where to find the information in Excel's Help section or an Excel book and learn it quickl shows the kind of initiative and ability to be resourceful and learn quickly that I'd want to see in an analyst"

I would agree that the built-in help function is fair game. And a book probably is too. Where I would get nervous, as an employer, is with an analyst going to either friends or worse, a public forum for help. A lot of stuff we work with is proprietary/confidential. How would you like to be putting together a big deal, ask your analyst to pull together a compset that ties to the WAAC, they don't know how to do it, so they post it online, and from the data, it's painfully obvious what the target company is? I wouldn't want ANY information from my shop leaving my shop, especially to a public outlet.
 
Your making quite the leap there, Ted. I understand your point, but it;s hard to take it seriously when you move from asking for help with an excel function to posting confidential company data online.
 
"Your making quite the leap there, Ted."

I agree, it is quite the leap. But the logic goes like this:

The only legitimate defense of using "outside" resources for the test is that, when actually performing the job, these same outside resources will be available to help. In what other circumstance would getting outside help be O.K.?

And my point is that I (and most people in the industry) are seriously averse to letting any data go outside the shop. So that can't possibly be the thinking of the testing employer.
 
On a related note,

We once had a guy interview with us who brought his laptop with him and showed us some models from his firm as examples of his work. It was quite funny, he started his laptop opened an excel file and showed it to one of our VPs. The VP looked at it for a couple of seconds before realising that it was for an actual deal and then shielded his eyes from the screen with his forearm! It was as if he didn't want to be tainted by having looked at another man's "model".

Needless to say, we didn't hire the guy, but one of my colleagues was disappointed that we didn't get the guy to give us a copy!
 
<<The VP looked at it for a couple of seconds before realising that it was for an actual deal and then shielded his eyes from the screen with his forearm!>>

Sounds like the kind of thing I would do if I were standing right in front of a car and the guy behind the wheel aimed the highbeams straight into my eyes. Who knew an excel spreadsheet could cause someone so much pain?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 10:35AM by numi.
 
The problem I have is this: The company wants/needs a candidate with a certain skill set. This particular applicant claims to have this skillset. The company gives the individual a test or requests some of his work in order to confirm he has the skills he claims to have. Clearly he does not have the skills since he is posting on a message board searching for help on completing the task. Its great that the applicant knows what resources are available and where to look for help. But the company wants/needs someone who can come in on day 1 of the job and be up in running and using the skills/knowledge he claims to have.

I see this all the time with resumes we get. People throw in buzz words about skills and knowledge relating to our job posting. We call them in for an interview and it turns out their "advanced knowledge" is that they read a book on the topic on their own time. That's great that theyre showing some initiative but not when I need someone experienced.
 
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