Excel interview questions for office roles
The questions that come up for admin, accounts and operations roles, answered the way an interviewer wants to hear them.
A relative reference (A1) moves when the formula is copied; an absolute reference ($A$1) stays fixed. Give an example: a tax rate in one cell referenced by a whole column.
VLOOKUP with an exact match, or XLOOKUP in recent Excel. Mention the common failure: #N/A from trailing spaces or text-versus-number mismatches.
SUMIF with the region column as the criteria range, or a pivot table if several regions are needed at once.
Summarising a large table by categories (rows and columns) with totals, counts or averages, without writing formulas. It refreshes when the source data changes.
Data > Remove Duplicates, selecting the columns that define a duplicate. Before that, copy the sheet so the original is kept.
Lock the cells that must not change, unlock the input cells, then Review > Protect Sheet. Mention that protection stops accidents, not determined users.
Practise out loud. Say each answer once as written, then again in your own words with your own number or story.
Have a number ready. "My Excel score is at benchmark on a timed test" is a stronger answer than "I am good at it". Take the test and quote the result.
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