The 5 Best Excel Tricks I’ve Learned on TikTok

• Employer demand for Excel skills continues to rise.
• But with nearly 500 functions and formulas, mastering the program can seem overwhelming.
• Fortunately, there's a crew of Gen Z Excel influencers on TikTok who can help you.

Let's be honest: Working in Excel is tedious, and numbers can be scary. But if you're job hunting, you will benefit from getting comfortable with both.

Excel skills have become nonnegotiable for many good jobs across industries. A 2019 study by Burning Glass Technologies projected that employer demand for Excel skills would grow by 23% in just five years. In the information economy, employers are looking for people who can wrangle data, make sense of it, and use it to inform business decisions.

What Makes Excel So Scary?

Excel has been around for nearly 40 years, adding new functions all the time. Currently, there are nearly 500 functions.

The sheer scale of the program can be overwhelming. That's why many of us tend to cling to the basic functions we already understand and ignore the rest. Excel expert Simon Hurst has estimated that the average user only employs about 10% of Excel's processing power.

But you know who isn't scared of all those functions? Gen Z. Some of these young people –– who Business Wire places "firmly at the vanguard of technology use across all generations" –– are even becoming Excel influencers on TikTok.

They manage to make mastering all those functions and formulas fun.

TikTok Is a Skills Platform –– Really

You're probably thinking: TikTok? Isn't that, like, a dancing app for teens?

Sure, you can learn the latest dance moves on TikTok –– if that's what you want. But you can also learn so many other things. In the right hands, TikTok is a digital wonderland of upskilling opportunities and career training resources.

On Excel TikTok, you can learn how to visualize data, perform calculations, and impose order on the chaos of your existence, one digestible short-form video at a time.

Here are the five most satisfying Excel tricks I've learned on TikTok so far.

1. How to Upload Data from a Photo

If your manager wants you to do a bunch of data entry by hand, try this instead.

• Open the Excel App on your phone.
• Select "Insert."
• Select "Data from Picture."
• Snap a picture of your data.
• Extract the data into an Excel spreadsheet.

@exceldictionary maybe next time boss #excel #exceltips #tutorial #spreadsheet ♬ Mission Impossible (Main Theme) - Favorite Movie Songs

2. How to Make a Geographic Heat Map

Thanks to COVID-19, we've all become pros at reading heat maps. Here's how to visualize your own data on a map.

• Enter your data into a new sheet.
• Select "Get Add-ins."
• Search for "Geographic Heat Map."
• Select your data.
• Set your formatting within the plug-in.
• Save, and marvel at your interactive map.

@miss.excel

Geo Heat Map — make it Haute 🔥

♬ Haute - Tyga & J Balvin & Chris Brown

3. How to Format a Massive Spreadsheet

Say your team is working out of a spreadsheet with a billion rows and columns, and none of them are formatted for visual clarity. Here's a quick fix that only takes a couple of keystrokes.

• Use keyboard shortcut CTRL+A to select all.
• Use keyboard shortcut ALT+H, O, I to autofit the width of your columns.
• Use keyboard shortcut ALT+H, O, A to autofit the width of your rows.
• Use all the time you just saved to learn more Excel tricks on TikTok.

@miss.excel Get ready to impress the whole team with this one 🔥 #theassignment #selfimprovement #todayilearned #excel #learnhow ♬ The Assignment - Tay Money

4. How to Look up Two Separate Fields at Once

If you need to pull data from a table by range or row, use the XLOOKUP function (the latest update to the VLOOKUP function), which lets you look up two fields at once.

• Enter the function
• =xlookup
• Enter the cells with your lookup values and separate with an "&"
• =xlookup(C2&D2
• Select the corresponding lookup value source columns and separate with an "&"
• =xlookup(C2&D2,C6:C569&D6:D569
• Select the cells that contain the output data you want to return
• =xlookup(C2&D2,C6:C569&D6:D569,E6:E569)

Now when you enter your lookup values, XLOOKUP will return the corresponding item!

@excel.friend impossible with vlookup but so easy with xlookup #learn ♬ original sound - Max P

5. How to Create and Format Charts and Graphs

Need to visualize some data for a presentation? Turn it into a gorgeous chart.

• Select the relevant data.
• Click "Insert" from top menu.
• Choose the type of chart you would like to create.

Formatting not quite right?

• Select the "Data" button.
• Choose desired series and horizontal axis.
• Edit the title if you need to.
• Add data labels.

Who knew numbers could look this good?

@miss.excel Chart Magic✨ #excel #howto #summer2020 #summerlooks #edutok #spreadsheet ♬ Magic In The Hamptons - Social House

As you can see: If you're on the job market, angling for a promotion, or just trying to build skills as you go, it might be time to download TikTok.

Frequently Asked Questions About Excel