Anyone had a VBA / Excel Test as part of an Interview

[doggo]

I have an interview with a pretty large company for an Excel / VBA development role and I am going to have to sit a test?

I am just curious to know if anyone has been through the same thing and can tell me what sort of areas / skills you were tested in?

I have been consulting for quite some time and this is the first time I have been asked to sit a test. I don't mind but I know how vast excel is - I am unsure what they may ask?

Any ideas?

 

[WillR]

I have never sat one.

I would imagine that they will test the kind of skills they feel a "developer" would need in their environment.

For example, if much of the work revolved around moving data to & from databases, they will probably test your ability to program ADO with VBA, possibly with a bit of SQL thrown in for good measure...

i.e., can you develop some code that gets all the records from a certain SQL table into Excel using ADO...

Then again, they may test you on automating charts / pivot tables...

If you have a detailed job description, that might give you some clues.

Good luck

 

[doggo]

Fair point actually - I don't really know too much about the job just yet I should have a better idea after the initial consultation

 

[Ivan F Moala]

Hi Doggo
Find out as much as you can about the prospective company you will be working for, what they do, who there clients are.
Be resourceful in this respect. Then build up what you may need to know along these lines. Being prepared is half the battle.
Also employers like that you have taken the initiative to find out what's important to them.

If you get caught out, be honest and tell them you don't know soemthing BUT add that you CAN learn and give them a real life example that you have done in this respect.
Tests are one thing but attitude and the willingness to be open, honest and learn is worth more (or at least in my books)

 

[XL-Dennis]

Season greetings to You all

I agree with Ivan & Will and a test only reflect one (minor) side of us.

In general I would say that so called knowledge-test miss the most important aspect of them all:

How we actually solve problems.

How to solve problems contain the following:
- How to create a structure of the issue, i e what is the real problem.
- How to apply solutions based on the structure, i e choose one or more
reasonable solutions.
- Create & test the solutions.
- Implement the solution(s) which also may involve a re-construction of the
data et al.

One major key to solve problems is how we build a structure of the data and this is where many people fail because they tend to only look for solutions based on the present data-structure. Many time people tend to see the present structure as fixed.

From my point of view, the above can be applied to most things in the life.