I joined this forum to to gain some Excel knowledge and I have to admit that most of the questions and answers are way above my Excel knowledge level. How did you all learn to become advanced Excel users? Did you take classes? Are you a programmer? Did you learn on the job? What type of jobs do you do? Analytics? Just curious.

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I have found that when I’m stuck trying to figure out what formula to use or struggling with pivot tables that YouTube has been really helpful. There’s a ton of how to Excel videos that are very helpful!

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I agree! YouTube and actually Google have helped me when I need to figure out an Excel issue or learn a new function. My job required a lot Excel use and I was able to learn enough while on-the-job using the internet.

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Only way to learn excel is to work on it....i do not co sider myself as an expert but i have learnt most of the formulas ,tips and tricks while facing some problems in my work and trying to solve them

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Mostly tinkering and on-the-job learning. It helps when your job requires certain things, like one of my college classes that required us to test Excel proficiency without a mouse. We got really good at keyboard shortcuts and Alt-ing our way through the ribbons.

Excel is like a toolbox that I fill one tool at a time: this formula, that Alt shortcut, a feature like Power Query (big one, still working on it), and so on.

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I’ve taken classes but have never learned much from them. For me the best way to learn is from necessity, and it helps a lot to be familiar with the data that you’re using. If I get stuck on something, I can usually figure it out via Google.

Someone on my team asked me for advice on how to learn, so I “broke” a couple of formulas in one of my workbooks and showed her how to work backwards. I’ve learned tons from replicating and troubleshooting other people’s work, so that’s my top recommendation.

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Agree with this entirely. I still have macro enabled files from the 90s that had formulas that I replicate and improve for new uses.

Also, don’t underestimate the volume of templates about. I do not recommend using them directly, and you can “steal shamelessly” ideas that people have offered for free.

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Lots of YouTube, a little bit of practice. I always kept in mind that if I’m thinking about doing something, someone else has already done it so you can go find out the how once you know what the “what” is. Then the knowledge compounds.

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Mrexcel forums plus experience. If I don’t know how to do something I ask

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YouTube University. There is a great channel excelisfun. Highly recommend. You can go from very basic to very advanced. It is taught by a professor and his teaching style is not academic but rather practical.

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Honestly, I’ve been using excel since ~3 years. However, that doesn’t mean I’m an expert or an amateur. I know some complex formulae/ pivot tables, etc. but there never is a point you know it all. I know the stuff which makes my work easier.

So to start off, find out the type of analysis you would be performing at your work. If you are helping in an M&A you would use a lot of financial formulae but if you just use it to analyse sales, you would be using Pivot tables, other kind of formulae.

Personally, I’d recommend learning on the job and I refer to this YouTube channel - Leila Gharani.

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For me, it was swim or sink. I was lucky to have Excel champs working next to me and found I loved making my workflows better. I jotted down any task or subtask that took more than 5 minutes to complete. I googled how to improve these tasks and understood if it could be reasonably done. This process would be a pain sometimes but I knew that every minute I spared for learning this hack/workaround/improvement would pay itself back multiple times.

Try putting your mind to it and be tough on yourself. Imbibe the Japanese principle of Kaizen.

Within 6 months, you will have people coming to you for Excel tips.

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Honestly nothing beats practice. No courses and no nothing!! And when you think you know Excel really well, you still have so much to learn!! I have been practicing it for a really long time that now i am the Excel training instructor for the EY office i work at and i still have so much to learn but how i got here is basically google any idea that hits my mind re Excel, try and automate anything in doing on Excel.

Google and Exceljet are your friends

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Learning on the job and also leveraging colleagues that have knowledge of advanced formulas has helped me tremendously.
Like commenters above have said… it’s more of hands-on learning especially on your job.

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Experience. But in this day and age of YouTube and online learning you can just look stuff up and take a course. The natural way is learning what is capable at a high level then absorb bits here and there naturally based on what you need to do (relevant). You will accumulate the skills naturally. Keyboard shortcuts are a must!

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Google and being on the trading floor

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I usually get annoyed with certain tasks to the point where I google how to do it faster in Excel

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I mostly learned on the job but I also took a community college class at one point.

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I feel the same way! The questions are above my level and sometimes the answers are too. But you bet your bottom dollar when I have a question this is where I will go. I am self taught. Google and you tube are my best friends.

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I learned on the job and through YouTube and Microsoft documentation. I use it mostly for data cleansing prior to pulling it into a SQL database. Clients never have clean data 🤣

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Trial and error, learning as you go. I’ve found most of my knowledge has came with building spread sheets and stumbling on something that I think I’m sure there’s an easier way to do this… then YouTube and practise.

I did a very basic course with my work to get me started.

I manage service contracts

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YouTube and hands-on experience.

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