Why learning Microsoft Excel is Important

In the world of digital competitiveness, skill development has become the ever-growing quality one must have to surpass any work. Whether growing professionals or students, possessing several soft skills will keep you one step ahead of everyone.

So, what is an important tool you must learn as a part of your computer literacy? of course, Microsoft Excel is the one to enhance your skill sets.

Microsoft Excel is one of the powerful spreadsheets and data analyzing programs with wide-ranging capabilities. From basic mathematical functions to complex statistical analyses, it is a popular tool in Business, Engineering, Accountancy, and many more industries.

Things you can do with Excel

Excel is the most flexible program to analyze any sort of data with a vast number of functionalities.

Here, I listed down some of the most common functions of Excel. Such as:

• Analyze a huge amount of data and make forecasting predictions to implement business decisions.
• Easily create spreadsheets from templates or on your own and use modern formulas to perform calculations.
• Create charts, visualizations, and dashboards to represent data.
• Manage inventory, human resources, and finances across different industries.
• Create, build, and edit pixelated images (yes, you can draw your favorite piece as well!)
• Allows real-time collaboration to share and manage work faster.
• The latest update supports direct data import to Excel from a photo. Just simply download the Excel App, take a picture of a printed data table on your Android or iPhone device, and automatically convert the picture into a fully editable table in Excel.

As you can see, starting from business inventory management to your daily basic calculations, Excel sorts everything in a very short time.

No matter which discipline you come from, you have to master this amazing software system to ace your professional career.

Top reasons to learn Excel

Employers highly value candidates with Excel skills and favor them in many ways. So, how it benefits? let’s find out.

• Increases your value in the job market.
• The more you advance your Excel skills, the more efficiently you will be able to complete a variety of projects and tasks.
• Many finance and Accountants-related positions rely on and can help to analyze financial modeling, and report documentation.
• Engineers or Data Analysts can prepare valuable datasets for forecasting performances and making decisions.
• Increases your salary for knowing such a universal computer program.

Recommended platforms to learn Excel

As you explore more, it is also necessary to know how do you get started. Here, I recommend down some of the popular learning platforms like:

• Microsoft’s Excel Training Center (Free)
• The Spreadsheet Page (Free)
• GCF LearnFree.org (Free)
• Excel Exposure (Free)
• EDX Excel Courses (Free)
• Coursera (Paid)

There are several other resources as well. Whether you are a beginner or at an advanced level, you can always go through these resources to improvise your learning.

Bottom line

One of my recent observations revealed that most of the hiring companies or job positions ask for basic or advanced literacy in Excel. As such, many job-seeking individuals are often found competitively lagging behind and are not able to ace the interview rounds.

Believe it or not, Excel is a proven skill that increases your chances of securing a job and makes you stand out of the crowd. The three professions are among the 80 percent of job openings that require spreadsheets and word-processing software skills.

Now, questions might rise why young professionals are not learning this skill at an early stage? This is because our education system is more focused on traditional syllabus based learning. Most educational institutions do not implicit practical learning instead generalize theoretical education.

Wrangling around the typical learning system, students struggle and thereby, later lacks industrial skills or knowledge. Also, they are not aware of the industry’s best practices due to a lack of proper mentorship.

So, it is critical for students and young professionals to grasp this skill from an early stage.

Final takeaways

You may find Excel intimidating at first, but by starting the right way will help in the long run. Practice it every day to learn the basic functions and formulas.

Do not forget to stay updated with the latest version of Excel that brings you a lot more of utilities to make your work easier.