Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet program used to create worksheets as well as to organize and store data in a table. With its range of tools and functions, Excel provides users with a powerful and convenient way to enter, manipulate, and retrieve data. An important aspect of receiving professional Excel training to set yourself up for a career change is learning what kinds of fields and industries that training will help you find work in. Each industry has different requirements and expectations for prospective employees, and you should consider these expectations when you start your training. This is true for students who have an idea of what kind of work they want to do, as well as for those who aren’t yet sure what path they want to take after learning Excel skills.

What is Excel? 

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application created by Microsoft in 1985. Excel is a powerful and valuable resource for organizing data and numbers using functions and formulas. It also comes with graphing tools to help visualize data findings, a programming language known as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) used to create macros, and advanced calculation capabilities. Excel works on both Mac and Windows operating systems. 

The cells within an Excel spreadsheet each contain data, like formulas, numbers, or text, which can be organized and analyzed. Excel is a useful tool for performing various calculations on spreadsheets. It can calculate statistics, perform repeated and advanced calculations, analyze data, and create graphical representations of the data, such as graphs, charts, and PivotTables. 

Read more about what Excel is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Excel Skills?

Excel has hundreds of features and tools that help users organize, manage, analyze, and visualize data. The following are just a few of the tools and features that make Excel the go-to for professionals around the globe:

• In Excel, users can add or average numbers in cells, locate high, median, or low values, count cells containing numbers, and find a product by multiplying cells. It’s also possible to delete extra white space and truncate numbers by removing fractions.
• Excel can learn your patterns the more you use it so that it can organize your data and ultimately save time. 
• Users can share workbooks with others in real-time to ensure that all collaborators have the most up-to-date version. 
• It’s possible to work on Excel files from the web and mobile and desktop devices.
• Users can now add data right into Excel from a photo. The Excel app enables users to take a picture of printed data with their iPhone or Android, then convert this image into an editable Excel table. This helpful trick helps users avoid manually entering hard copy data and is made possible through Excel’s image recognition capabilities. 
• Financial transactions can be imported into Excel so that users can organize and review their financial information and receive helpful insights toward making more informed financial decisions.
• Excel’s PivotTables help users perform analysis and summaries of datasets, regrouping spreadsheet data for more effective comparisons. By seeing data from different perspectives, it’s possible to get a more comprehensive picture of revenue sources and other vital information.

Common Industries That Use Excel

Excel remains a hugely popular spreadsheet tool. It’s used by over 700,000 companies in the United States alone. Organizations of all sizes and types that keep track of data work with Excel’s features and functions to save time, improve organization, and manage vast amounts of information. Although Excel is used in many industries and professions, it’s very common in finance, project management, human relations, and business. The following sections will explore some of the most common applications of Excel in various industries.

Finance

Within the field of finance, Excel is essential to know. Financial professionals, such as Financial Analysts and Accountants, use this spreadsheet application every day to perform a range of tasks. Financial Analysts are tasked with reaching conclusions about financial data and offering recommendations based on their findings. This process requires performing research, then organizing and analyzing data. Their organization then uses its findings to inform its decision-making process. Spreadsheet knowledge also helps these professionals review sales figures, annual revenue, and direct costs, as well as make investment decisions. 

Prior to the advent of Excel, financial professionals would have to spend weeks manually executing advanced formulas. Now, Excel can complete complex modeling in just a few minutes. Accountants, as well as Financial Analysts, use Excel to create budgets and forecasts, as well as to outline various financial results. Excel tools such as IF functions, when used with VLOOKUP and INDEX-MATCH-MATCH, help them do much more than simply add or divide values.

Financial Analysts enjoy competitive pay for their contributions to their organization. These professionals earn an average yearly salary of $95,000. In addition, the job outlook for those who analyze financial data is strong; this profession is expected to grow 9% by 2031, which is well over the national average.

Human Resources

Those who work in human resources (HR) have relied on Excel for decades to perform many daily tasks. HR professionals use basic Excel functions to keep track of attendance, payroll, employee information, and annual leave. In particular, startups and smaller businesses rely on this spreadsheet app and can even use it in place of database systems like SAP or Oracle. By exporting data into an Excel worksheet, those working in HR can find trends, as well as summarize hours or expenses for a specific timeframe, such as a pay period, month, season, or year. Excel allows them to have a better understanding of their workforce. This tool helps them pinpoint where costs are adding up, as well as how to control them and establish a more financially sound plan for moving forward.

Human Resources Managers with Excel knowledge earn a competitive salary. On average, these professionals make $125,000 a year, which is well over double the national average pay. This field also has a healthy growth projection of 7% over the next decade, which is in keeping with the national average projection.

Business

For those who work in the business sector, Excel plays an integral role in their daily tasks. Business Analysts must keep track of huge amounts of company data. Any slight problem can result in huge consequences for their business. With the help of Excel, business professionals can store these data in one place, organize them, and keep it safe and accessible. Excel allows them to easily and quickly search this information so that it can be studied. Excel functions allow those working in the business sector to sort and filter numbers, as well as to search for specific values, in seconds. Business Analysts are generally expected to have advanced spreadsheet skills to qualify for job openings. This ensures that they can work with worksheets and workbooks for analyzing data, find insights in these numbers, and communicate these findings with relevant stakeholders within their organization.

Business Analysts use many Excel functions on a regular basis. These professionals use VLOOKUP to find specific values contained in columns and HLOOKUP to find values in rows. Sorting and filtering functions are also common for Business Analysts since they can save them hours or weeks of time that it would take to perform these tasks manually. In addition, Excel PivotTables and charts are essential to those who analyze business data since they provide a way to explore, analyze, and summarize vast amounts of data and present them visually so that they can be accessed and understood by a more general audience. In addition, COUNTIF and SUMIF functions in Excel are useful for counting the number of times a number or word appears within a specified range. For Business Analysts who worry they may be missing values in their data, the COUNTA and COUNTBLANK functions are helpful. COUNTA determines how many cells in a worksheet are not blank. COUNTBLANK provides a way for Excel users to spot any blank cells that appear in a specific range.

Business Analysts receive good pay for their work. In the U.S., they earn about $80,000 a year. This is approximately $25,000 above the average salary in the country.

Project Management

Project Managers ensure that a project is completed on schedule and according to specifications. These professionals wear many hats; they manage employees, communicate with third-party vendors, create and distribute documents, and allocate resources. To accomplish these tasks, they must ensure that any essential information is organized so that it can be easily accessed and manipulated. In addition to project management tools like Power BI, which are typically used for larger projects, Excel is an essential tool for smaller projects. This spreadsheet app can generate reports, manage financial information, compile vendor lists, and design visualizations. 

Project Managers in the U.S. earn a competitive salary. Although pay rates vary depending on the type of project management, these professionals can expect to make about $95,000 annually. Their job growth outlook up through 2031 remains on par with the national average of approximately 7%. Each year over the next decade, 70,000 job openings for Project Managers are expected.

Learn Excel Skills with Noble Desktop

Are you looking to learn how to use Microsoft Excel, the industry-standard spreadsheet application? If so, Noble Desktop currently offers a variety of Excel courses in NYC and live online. Classes are available for those new to Excel and for learners who regularly work with this spreadsheet application and wish to improve their skills. In addition, in-person and live online Excel courses are available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, ranging in duration from three hours to two days and costing between $229 and $1,099. 

Noble Desktop’s Excel Bootcamp provides an excellent option for those who want to master core Excel concepts, such as working with PivotTables and What-If Analysis. Students who enroll in this rigorous, 21-hour course can elect to study in person in Manhattan or learn in the live online environment. This small class comes with the option of a free retake and covers a variety of Excel concepts applicable to the business world.

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft Excel is the most popular spreadsheet application in the world. It helps professionals store, sort, retrieve, analyze, and visualize data. 
• Excel is used by over 700,000 organizations in the U.S. and helps professionals in a range of industries perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently. 
• Excel is commonly used in financial professions, as well as in the business sector, project management, and in human resources.
• You can receive comprehensive Excel training through Noble Desktop, either in person or online.