Are you sure you know Office? Many of us overestimate ourselves in this

The Profesia.sk portal regularly publishes information on trends among employers. It has long been a known fact that companies, in addition to language skills, also require good knowledge of the Microsoft Office office suite. However, during interviews, they often encounter the fact that the job applicant does not know the Office suite as well as he declared in his CV. Simply put, even if we work with Word or Excel every day, it does not mean that we know them at an advanced or even expert level. How are you doing?

You can check it out for yourself. We will tell you what it means to know the Office suite at specific levels. We will show you how to use the basic and most frequently used programs of this suite.

Working not only with tables in Excel

Perhaps the most used, but also quite complicated of the Office suite is the Excel spreadsheet. Are you a beginner? So you probably know how to make basic tables, format text in them, use keyboard shortcuts, set the format of tables using tools, and work with rows, columns, and sheets. But can you also use functions like SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, SUBTOTAL, filter, create a simple chart, and do basic calculations? As a beginner, you should even be able to create a pivot table.

If you consider yourself advanced, you should already be able to do conditional formatting, know the autofilter options, sort records in tables, insert formulas into tables, create a pivot chart and areas in a chart, make subtotals, work with the DSUM, DMIN, DMAX, CHOOSE, MATCH, REPLACE, SUBSTITUTE functions, etc. You should also be able to create a calculation field and advanced tools in pivot tables, simple and nested subtotals, create macros, and much more.

As an expert in Excel, you should already be able to program in VBA – Visual Basic for Applications, which was developed by Microsoft and Excel is one of the programs that includes it. Mastering VBA is practical mainly because you don’t have to constantly do some tasks over and over again, so you can automate them. However, very few people have this level of knowledge of Excel.

Word is not just about writing

You might think, after all, every schoolchild already knows Word. Yes, when we are talking only about writing or basic text formatting. However, an advanced Word user also knows advanced formatting, can convert text to a table and a table to text, can control referencing (footnotes, endnotes, legend), can create a table of contents and registers, cross-references, use fields and forms, use templates, make work easier with macros, and master advanced mail merge techniques. They can insert various objects into documents for data integration. And he can also make document revisions while working with colleagues simultaneously, and he can work with superior and nested documents.

Any large document, final report, summary overview, which explicitly asks for a detailed, elaborate structure, are a breeze for an advanced Word user. He can also create promotional materials, instructions, textbooks or manuals in it.

How to get the most out of PowerPoint

Can you prepare a truly professional presentation? One that distinguishes the target audience and the venue of the event when planning? Can you also create your own presentation template, format the background of the slides, your own animations and graphics, or can you edit images using built-in tools? Can you format graphs and diagrams at an advanced level? Microsoft Power Point also allows you to insert audio and videos, you can create and set your own slide presentation procedure in it and skillfully guide the entire presentation process.

You can also export the presentation to other MS Office programs, merge or compare presentations, and of course you can make revisions in the team, where you will accept or reject changes. In short, PowerPoint has a wide range of functions that will allow a person at an advanced level to work even more efficiently, create more beautiful presentations and better work results.

After reading this article, did you find that you have reserves? No problem. If you want to improve your use of Office programs, we have the Office Advanced course for you, which is among the most effective courses at a reasonable price at Smarty Academy. In addition to the programs mentioned, we will also teach you how to improve your work with the Outlook email client. Did you know that you can also use it as an organizer of appointments, meetings, create business cards and store entire contact databases in it?

Bonus from us!

At Smarty Academy, in addition to valuable knowledge and practice, we will give you something extra. You will receive a Microsoft Office 2021 Professional PLUS license worth more than €800 completely free of charge from us. In addition, you can have the entire course reimbursed through the national program Don’t lose your job – learn, which we have already written about in more detail in one of the previous articles.

Mastering Office programs at a higher level makes your work easier. After all, just by using a number of keyboard shortcuts, you can make your work processes more efficient by up to 40%. Any work related to data analytics and office activities are closely linked to the Office suite, and we guarantee that mastering them at least at an advanced level will open the way to many interesting offers.