Is 30 Too Old to Learn Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a widely popular spreadsheet application that’s used by over 750 million people around the globe. This tool provides users with many helpful features for managing, analyzing, and visualizing data. Because of this tool’s relative ease of use and versatility, professionals rely on it in most career paths. If you’re interested in learning Excel and are over 30 years old, you may wonder if you’re too old to acquire this skill. The good news is that you’re never too old to learn Excel, no matter your age. With the proper instruction, tools, and training, you’ll be able to perform basic spreadsheet tasks in as little as a few hours or days. Read on to learn more about why studying Excel is a great option for learners of all ages, how long it will take to acquire spreadsheet skills, and what you can do to make this learning process even easier and faster.

Why Learn Excel at 30?

No matter your age, learning to work with spreadsheets is an in-demand skill set across industries and professions. Currently, approximately one out of every eight people around the world uses Excel. Those with office jobs spend an average of one-third of their work time using this spreadsheet tool. Yet, the majority of office professionals haven’t studied Excel in a formal setting. Excel training can open many professional doors and help you be a more productive employee in your current position. Knowledge of Excel is a great way to perform daily work tasks faster and more accurately. Features in Excel, such as its error-checking and data validation tools, ensure that the work completed is of better quality and contains fewer errors. Additionally, Excel allows you to automate repetitive tasks, which can save you hours when completing projects.

Each day around the globe, more data is being created than ever before. However, they hold no value until someone can make sense of these numbers. One of the main benefits of learning Excel is that it has many applications for analyzing and visualizing data so that actionable insights can be discovered and shared with any relevant stakeholders. This app is a hugely popular tool for analyzing data, which means that anyone interested in pursuing a data-related career, such as Financial Analyst, Business Analyst, or Data Scientist, will need Excel training as a tool in their toolbox. The more you know about how to use Excel functions like filters, PivotTables, and charts, the easier it will be to quickly analyze vast stores of data to spot patterns, trends, and outliers. These findings can improve an organization’s decision-making process and lead to better outcomes for everyone who works there. Excel also has collaborative features that help those working on group projects share their work in real-time with other team members who are simultaneously working with the same spreadsheet.

Another great reason to study Excel is to improve your marketability and job prospects. Excel has applications in many industries, including healthcare, marketing, finance, and data analysis. The more you know about how to create and modify spreadsheets, the more appealing you’ll be to prospective employers and the more job options you’ll have. 

How Long Will it Take to Learn Excel?

Once you’ve committed to learning Microsoft Excel, you may wonder how long it will take to do so. The amount of time needed to learn Excel varies from learner to learner and depends on a host of factors, including their prior experience working with spreadsheets, whether they have previous training handling datasets, and what they hope to ultimately do with their spreadsheet knowledge. Those who have technical training or expertise may find it much easier and faster to learn Excel than those who come from an entirely different background. Additionally, learners who are familiar with Microsoft 365 products like PowerPoint or Word may find it more intuitive to navigate the Excel interface and perform basic shortcuts than those who are less familiar with the Microsoft suite of productivity tools.

Another important factor that dictates the time it will take to learn Excel is the level of proficiency you’re hoping to ultimately attain with this spreadsheet tool. Learning to perform basic spreadsheet tasks, such as adding or averaging numbers, formatting worksheets, printing workbooks, and creating basic data visualizations like charts or graphs, is usually a fairly easy skill set to acquire. Most individuals who enroll in a short skills class can gain this type of training in just one day. Those looking to learn more about this application’s advanced features, including how to use PivotTables and split and join text, will likely need longer. Some estimate that acquiring advanced Excel skills takes learners between 18 and 20 hours. For career-minded individuals who are interested in mastering Excel’s advanced capabilities for work-related reasons, this timeframe may be even longer.

If you’re interested in streamlining your Excel learning process, several tips can help you along the way. Most learners benefit from learning Excel gradually over time rather than in one sitting. Rather than being overwhelmed by the vast range of features, functions, and shortcuts this app offers, it’s more useful to space out your Excel training over days or weeks so you have time to learn the basics and practice with them before moving on to harder and more challenging tasks. Repetition can be very useful for committing shortcuts to memory. Additionally, most learners find it useful to practice with real-world data. This can be as basic as monthly budget calculations and bill-paying. Rather than working with abstract numbers, some find it more helpful to learn how to clean, organize, and analyze data when working with real values. Another useful tip is to try to learn Excel shortcuts early on in your studies. These time-saving keyboard shortcuts will help you quickly perform essential tasks like creating tables and performing calculations. They also can save you valuable hours that would otherwise be spent scrolling through rows and columns and manually searching for values. Memorizing useful shortcuts like copying, pasting, and printing early in your studies will benefit you greatly down the line.

Ways to Make Learning Excel Easier and Quicker

If you’re interested in finding ways to make Excel study easier and faster, many educational resources are available, including free online tools and live coursework.

Free Online Excel Tools 

If you’re just getting started learning Microsoft Excel or want to explore a specific spreadsheet skill, a variety of free spreadsheet resources and tutorials are available online on platforms like YouTube that can provide useful instruction in a range of Excel features and functions. If you have a specific Excel question, you can search for an answer online and likely find material that provides clarification. Some popular YouTube Excel channels are available from ExcelisFun, Excel Campus, TeachExcel, and Excel Dude. 

If you’d like to acquire fundamental spreadsheet training, such as an overview of the Excel interface and its basic features, free online resources can be a great starting place. Microsoft Support provides free video training options in a range of core spreadsheet skills, such as how to get started working with this app, use tables and charts, share and co-author documents, and explore Power Query. Many providers offer free online resources designed to cover basic, intermediate, or advanced Excel skills. Additionally, tech training companies like Noble Desktop also offer free online Excel resources, including 10 Beginner Excel Tricks You Need to Know. This hour-long video is a great place to start your Excel learning journey, as it includes instruction on core topics like navigation shortcuts, autofill, and absolute cell reference. 

There are also a variety of free books, blog posts, and other training content that cover Excel features and functions for those interested in reading more about this app. Noble Desktop has a range of well-researched articles on useful Excel skills and timely topics. Noble’s Learn Hub contains more than three dozen articles on Excel topics like how to customize the ribbon, create a basic sparkline, and use Excel on an Android phone.

On-demand Platforms

On-demand Excel training materials are another useful tool that can expedite your Excel learning pace. These materials are pre-recorded and placed online, and students can watch them at any time they wish, from any location with a strong internet connection. This type of training not only allows students to complete coursework as their schedule permits but also allows them to determine their own study speed. Many educators worldwide offer self-paced coursework, including Skillshare, Coursera, and Udemy. These courses are often a good way to begin studying Excel or to gain a basic understanding of how to navigate this app’s interface. Some on-demand content is very short and takes only a few hours to complete, such as Exceljet’s Conditional Formatting class. Other programs, including UBCx’s Excel for Everyone Professional Certificate, require several months of study to complete a series of related classes. Each learner must determine their own learning needs to decide which course or program is best for them.

Live Excel Training

The most effective and engaging way to speed up your Excel learning process is by enrolling in a live course. Live Excel training classes are available from many top educators around the globe. Some of these courses, such as skills classes and bootcamps, focus entirely on spreadsheet training, whereas other programs like certificates are more comprehensive in scope and often provide a broader focus on data analytics and a range of tools used in this field, including Excel. These courses are taught in person at designated training facilities in major cities around the country, as well as in the live online environment using Zoom or a similar teleconferencing platform. Students benefit not only from personalized instruction from a teacher with real-world spreadsheet knowledge but also from the sense of community and camaraderie that comes with studying alongside others. 

One important decision all Excel learners will need to make when opting for live coursework is whether to enroll part-time or full-time. Each has its own benefits. Part-time study bootcamp or certificate study is an excellent option for those who work full-time and must balance their studies alongside other commitments. While this training format can require weeks or months of weeknight and weekend study to complete, it provides learners with the added benefit of extra time along the way to practice the skills they’re learning to ensure they’re committed to memory. For those with more flexible work schedules, full-time Excel classes may be a more appealing option. This rigorous format for learning requires that the student devote their full efforts over several weeks (or months for longer classes) to learning Excel. One of the main benefits of full-time study is that students graduate from bootcamps or certificates much faster than they would in the part-time capacity and can immediately put their skills to use in their current job or to pursue an entirely new career path. 

Learn Excel with Noble Desktop

If you want to learn how to work with spreadsheets and do so in well under three months, Noble Desktop offers in-person and live online Excel courses. These programs are available to those who are just getting started using spreadsheets, as well as professionals who want to acquire advanced-level Excel training. All Noble courses provide hands-on training in the small class environment and offer a free course retake for up to one year after graduation.

Excel Level I: Fundamentals is an excellent learning option if you’re interested in basic spreadsheet training. This one-day program teaches all the essential spreadsheet skills you’ll need to get started working with this application. Participants explore basic functions, calculations, graphs, formatting, and printing. This program is intended for students who have limited experience with Excel and want to become more proficient.

Excel Level 2: Intermediate is available for those who want to build on their basic Excel training and take their skills even further. This short class covers skills like working with SUMIFs and VLOOKUP. Participants become familiar with using PivotTables to summarize data, split and join text, and sort and filter databases. As a prerequisite, students should have already completed Excel Level 1 or have a similar skill set, including knowledge of formulas, functions, formatting, and printing.

Noble also offers Excel Level 3: Advanced for those who want to master this application’s complicated features. This program teaches students how to use advanced analytics tools, write macros to save time and improve efficiency, and use complex functions like INDEX-Double MATCH and VLOOKUP-MATCH. Those looking to enroll in this program should have proficiency with spreadsheets equivalent to Noble’s Intermediate Excel course, including knowledge of IF statements, VLOOKUP, and PivotTables.

In addition to short course offerings, Noble has a bootcamp that offers more comprehensive spreadsheet training. In Excel Bootcamp, participants progress from Excel beginners to pros over the course of several days. This hands-on course combines beginner, intermediate, and advanced course training and leaves students with the skills necessary to work with functions and formulas, create macros, and work with PivotTables.