What is an Excel Expert?

[1moreQ]

I have a few Sr. Analyst/Associate level job interviews lined up in the next 3 weeks all of which require candidates to have either have “Excel Expertise” or be an “Expert User.”
What is an expert user? I know ~15 functions for finance and data manipulation (IRR, NPV etc + vlookups, dates, arrays etc), can do pivot tables, write macros and basic import export of data. These positions dont say what they want folk to know. So…to the excel gurus here….
When someone is said to have excel expertise, what are/should they be expected to know? What should i know cold, before walking into an interview?

 

[juventurd]

If they are saying “Expert” I would assume decent knowledge of Visual Basic script used in macros in addition to what you have said.

 

[JoeyDVivre]

So if anybody asked me if I was an Excel expert, I would answer something like “If Excel can do it, I can get Excel to do it. Since I can either write in VBA or write dll’s that run from VBA I can get Excel to do anything my computer can do”. If someone then asked me how I would do [blah], I might shrug and say something like “I’d figure it out”. I don’t think there is anything you need to know cold because Excel and Windows are monstrous things (alt+f11 might be a good thing to know cold).

 

[CFAMaven]

MS Office has Excel certifications, get those and you can call yourself an expert

 

[FourCastles]

I do not know if I am an expert or not but this is what I do on the job pretty much daily using Excel:
- using built-in functionality to write all kinds of models (formulas, array formulas, graphs)
- accessing data in databases and then presenting them in pivot tables
- pulling in data from Bloomberg into spreadsheets
- writing VBA addins (custom functions, dialog boxes)
- writing C++ dlls
None of this is too difficult, if you have the basics you mention you can pick up a good book or two and learn all of this in, say, 2-3 weeks.

 

[ahahah]

“excel expertise”=”attention to detail”=”analytical skills”
no real meaning, just something to complain about when you screw something up…