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When the employer asks you about your MS skills, what exactly does "intermediate to advanced MS skill" mean?
3rd year undergrad, seeking jobs for summer, I often see 'intermediate to advanced MS skills' in the job description, but how good does that mean? #job-search #interviews #microsoft-office
5 answers
Kim Igleheart
Kim’s Answer
Excellent Question!
The answer? It depends. . .
A lot of us try to talk ourselves out of jobs by saying we don't meet the qualifications. If you are one of those people, stop doing that!
In most office jobs, a person is expected to be proficient at Word and Excel. It's been around "forever." So, intermediate is normally someone who is capable of making a document, formatting it so it looks sharp, using headers, footers, footnotes, page numbers, creating tables, inserting photos/objects, printing envelopes, making a basic flyer/newsletter, maybe comparing documents, commenting, etc. But, a lot depends on the company/type of business. If it is heavy on writing, advertising, etc, they might want more. If they only marginally use computers, they usually expect less.
For Excel, it means you can create spreadsheets, and manipulate them, make them eye-appealing, and create and use at least basic formulas. Advanced? pivot tables. (whatever those are!!)
Beyond word and excel, there are databases and other programs.
You should also be comfortable with email, and attachments.
The next phase is the cloud. You should get comfortable with google drive, dropbox, etc.
Also, if you have access to it, Adobe Acrobat Pro has a lot of document management features that I was totally unfamiliar with!
I would also encourage you to work on organizational skills. File management, etc. You need to be able to find what you created!
Again, don't talk yourself out of applying for jobs! If you can easily pick up computer skills, sell yourself by playing up this "aptitude." If you are the go-to person who helps everyone else, then say so! Also, don't just say you know Word or Excel, try to demonstrate how you have used it/what you have done with it. The most common phrase I see on resumes is "proficient with Word and Excel." This means different things to different people. Don't leave anyone wondering what you can do! And, if you say you are good at Word, your resume should look professionally-created!
The important thing about computers is to constantly be challenging yourself to learn something new. It is constantly changing, and it is imperative to stay on top of it!
Hope this has helped a little. Best of luck!!
I would add Visual Basic skills to into this category as well. Intermediate would mean you know what VB is and can read and write basic macros without too much trouble. An advanced user could use VB to create Word and Excel documents that have advanced functionality such as data querying and automatic report generation; these documents would almost mimic software you would buy to perform such functions.
Jayavignesh Arivalagan
Sunny Haynes
Sunny’s Answer
Many common tasks in the daily operation of an office go beyond basic MS Office skills, such as using Mail Merge in Word to personalize business letters for an entire mailing list or creating posters and other graphics-heavy documents in Publisher. Creating slideshows in PowerPoint is an intermediate-level task often used in the office. At this level, employees should know how to create formulas in Excel to calculate desired results such as sales commissions or taxes, and some office workers use Excel instead of Access to create lists of customers or other information. Intermediate skills for Outlook include knowing how to create address books and set up auto-responders for when you are out of the office or on vacation.
Examples of Advanced Tasks would be:
Knowing how to use OneNote and InfoPath can be considered advanced or specialty knowledge depending on the place of business. An employee's ability to handle these programs, along with the capability to import and export information in all the MS Office applications, is a bonus for any employer. Creating databases in Access is more complex than entering a simple list in Excel. The advanced skill set also includes using Excel for custom financial forms, using graphics and tracking changes between shared documents in Word, and customizing presentations in PowerPoint.
Sunny recommends the following next steps:
Meena S
Meena’s Answer
MS here looks like it is used in context of Microsoft. When a corporate job asks for MS, it is Microsoft office skills like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook. These are the tools used in day to day office jobs like creating documents, spreadsheets, presentation and email communication.
Amanda Aguilar-Oliver
Amanda’s Answer
Great question Cindy!
MS is an abbreviated term for Microsoft Office Suite which consists of various Microsoft applications like: Microsoft Word (type documents), Excel (create spreadsheets and graphs), Microsoft Outlook (email platform businesses use), Microsoft Teams (group chat for businesses like Slack/Instant Messaging), Microsoft Access ( database) , One Drive (like Dropbox, stores files), and Microsoft Publisher (design flyers, ads, etc). PC users tend to use Microsoft applications, although Mac users can also use compatible versions of Microsoft Office Suite.
Organizations are also using Google applications like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive, etc which closely mirror Microsoft applications but allows multiple users to update and view forms simultaneously.
Marco Coronel
Marco’s Answer
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Accesss, etc)