Skills Tests: Word, Excel, etc.

[speculative]

Has anyone taken any standardized office skills tests lately? I need to take an online test for Word & Excel along with a typing test for a recruiter. I know basic functions in Word, and some advanced functions in Word that are probably not used very often (such as creating and formatting tables of contents and indexes). My fear is that the Word test will be all about mail merge or something so low-level on the clerical totem pole that I won't have done it for 10 years, and so I will score low on the test. I have the same experience with Excel: I've used it to do some basic financial analysis and formatting, but I'm not sure what they would be looking for on an Excel test. (Should I know all the possible formulas and their formatting, for example?)

If you've taken these kinds of tests lately, what kind of functions are they asking you to perform in these or similar programs?

 

[cascadeco]

Has anyone taken any standardized office skills tests lately? I need to take an online test for Word & Excel along with a typing test for a recruiter. I know basic functions in Word, and some advanced functions in Word that are probably not used very often (such as creating and formatting tables of contents and indexes). My fear is that the Word test will be all about mail merge or something so low-level on the clerical totem pole that I won't have done it for 10 years, and so I will score low on the test. I have the same experience with Excel: I've used it to do some basic financial analysis and formatting, but I'm not sure what they would be looking for on an Excel test. (Should I know all the possible formulas and their formatting, for example?)

If you've taken these kinds of tests lately, what kind of functions are they asking you to perform in these or similar programs?

I took both at a temp-agency, so the tests I took (based on their needs) might be different, and much more basic, than the online ones you'll have to do. The ones I took were not complicated - definitely nothing involving formulas with Excel. The tests seemed to highlight the users knowledge of all of the basic functionality -- everything found in the dropdown menus, with less of a need to know the detailed functionality after you choose something from the menu. Sure, there was some of that, but primarily you had to know where to go initially. And yes, I specifically recall the mail merge thing. The aim of the tests seemed to be that the user know exactly where to go and what dropdown/etc to utilize to perform the requested function, first try. It's why I only did 'average' on both programs -- I'm not one to memorize the programs, I learn as I go and as the need arises and I troubleshoot/play around with everything as I'm doing it - and in the real world you don't have only 'one try'. The tests want you to know the 'right way', no playing around.

I DID rock on the typing test, though. 90 wpm!! woot.

 

[speculative]

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll beef up on my menu-diving a bit before taking the tests.

 

[speculative]

Got 107 wpm on the typing test with 1 error. Ah, the magic of ergonomic keyboards.

Gah! I couldn't do the mail merge thing, which I expected, and it was the last question on the Word test. However, these tests were pretty basic. Open files, format things, copy-paste, save files, and do some basic things such as formatting text in Word and using and formatting cells in Excel. So, overall, I think they were fair tests that would be pretty good gauges of whether or not someone could use the programs in a general sense.