Analyst interviews test VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot intuition, and whether you catch formula errors—not ribbon memorization.
Common questions
- Explain VLOOKUP and when it fails
- Fix a pivot that won't refresh
- Difference relative vs absolute references
- Detect duplicates or reconcile two lists
Story
Describe a time you cleaned a messy export, built a pivot for leadership, and validated totals against SQL.
Important interview questions and answers
- Q: VLOOKUP exact match?
A: FALSE for ID lookups. - Q: Pivot refresh?
A: Source changed—refresh or fix Table range.
Self-check
- Name three Excel interview topics.
- What story shows business impact?
Tip: Practice explaining VLOOKUP failure modes: wrong column index, not exact match, text vs number keys.
Interview prep
- VLOOKUP fail?
Wrong index, approximate match, type mismatch on key.