| Whether you work at an accounting firm, a | | | | appeared to be growing and which ones had |
| marketing company, an auto dealership, a school | | | | declining sales? What was the volume of real |
| attendance office, a manufacturing plant’s | | | | estate loans and had there been a decline or |
| human resources department, or an office | | | | increase from the previous year? |
| associated with city, county, state or federal | | | | We looked at local and national retail, services, |
| government, chances are, you’ll be called | | | | financial institutions, government entities, |
| upon to use and learn Excel. | | | | agriculture, the wine industry, tourism and |
| Just about every workplace has a demand for | | | | hospitality, manufacturing, residential and |
| Excel, the computing world’s most commonly | | | | commercial real estate, everything imaginable. |
| used software program for comparative data | | | | Excel allowed us to examine ratios, percentages, |
| analysis. Excel has been available in various | | | | and anything else we wanted to scrutinize. Finally, |
| incarnations for more than a decade. Each | | | | we were able to use Excel to compare the |
| subsequent release takes the program to new | | | | results to data from previous years. |
| territory. | | | | Since reporters tend to be former English majors, |
| Popularly known as the best spreadsheet | | | | most of those who worked on this annual project |
| program on the market, Excel is powerful, easy | | | | were more familiar with Microsoft® Word than |
| to use, and remarkably efficient. Excel is highly | | | | any other software program. Therefore, most |
| interactive. Its spreadsheet cells are arranged in a | | | | were required to undergo Excel training. For some, |
| collection of rows and columns, each of which can | | | | learning Excel was easier than for others. A few |
| hold a number, a text string, or a formula that | | | | relied on guides such as Microsoft Excel Bible or |
| performs a function, such as calculation. It’s | | | | Excel for Dummies. Some reporters underwent |
| easy to copy and move cells as well as modify | | | | an Excel tutorial while others learned by doing. |
| formulas. The spreadsheet is displayed on the | | | | Not only were the Excel spreadsheets crucial to |
| computer screen in a scrollable window that allows | | | | the research, the format of each was published in |
| the document to be as deep or as wide as | | | | the newspaper. Here is where some additional |
| required. | | | | Excel functions came into play. Editors were able |
| Working for a major newspaper in Northern | | | | to make the spreadsheets more visually appealing |
| California, I was one of several reporters involved | | | | by using colors and shading, borders and lines, and |
| in the annual evaluation of our county’s | | | | other features that made the spreadsheets easy |
| economy. The job involved collecting data that | | | | for readers to decipher. |
| would be punched into Excel spreadsheets that | | | | Wearing another of my several hats in the |
| ultimately ranked information according to the | | | | newsroom, I often wrote articles concerning the |
| category of statistics being reviewed. | | | | local job market. I found proficiency in Excel was |
| The beauty of Excel, from the standpoint of | | | | a requirement for a wide variety of employment |
| newspaper research projects, is that you can use | | | | positions and that area recruiting firms offered |
| formulas to recalculate results by changing any of | | | | their clients opportunities to take free or low-cost |
| the cells they use. With this model, you can use | | | | Excel tutorials in preparation for the workplace. |
| the same spreadsheet data to achieve various | | | | Most employers expect job candidates to already |
| results by simply defining and changing formulas | | | | know the software that the work will require and |
| as desired. It is this feature that makes Excel so | | | | don’t want to have to train new hires. |
| useful in so many different arenas. | | | | Don’t kid yourself. If you’re seeking any |
| With a click of the mouse, we reporters were | | | | kind of office work, you’ll need to know not |
| able to get answers to a wide variety of | | | | only Microsoft Word but also Excel. |
| questions. Which employers had the greatest | | | | Excel and Microsoft are trademarks of Microsoft |
| number of workers? Which ones had the highest | | | | Corporation, registered in the U.S. and other |
| amount of gross annual receipts? Which ones | | | | countries. |