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How to List Microsoft Office Skills on a Resume in 2021

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Zety

Microsoft Office Skills

Microsoft Office Suite, commonly known as Microsoft Office or simply Office, is a set of productivity tools used by businesses around the world. However, it's used for much more than just writing texts in Word and creating tables in Excel. This suite enables users to perform hundreds of advanced tasks.

True⁠—some jobs require only the basics. But for most of mid- and high-level positions you need to know a few tricky functionalities, too.

MS Office comprises of:

Microsoft Word: a word-processing program that allows you to write and edit texts. It features a set of helpful language tools and various accessibility options.
Microsoft Excel: it’s a spreadsheet program to organize and to manipulate data.
Microsoft Powerpoint: brings your ideas to life in the form of presentations and allows you to create designs, slide animations, 3D models, and icons.
Microsoft Outlook: it’s your email, calendar, and contacts list.
Microsoft OneNote: a digital notebook that helps you gather information in the form of text, drawings, screen clippings, and even audio files.

Microsoft Office Suite offers programs that can be used both in a web browser and on a computer.

The two good oldies below may now be used only on PCs:

Microsoft Access: a database management system from which can link directly to other apps and databases.

Microsoft Publisher: a layout tool that allows users to style texts, pictures, borders, etc.

Companies very often use Microsoft Office 365 Business with Microsoft Teams and other apps such as Microsoft OneDrive and Microsoft SharePoint that make teamwork easier.

Still, when a job ad states “Microsoft Office skills,” they probably mean this quartet: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook:

Microsoft Office Skills

Creating spreadsheet
Creating tables
Creating pivot tables
Running and creating macros
Data analysis
Data visualization
Validating data
Creating documents
Managing tables of content
Preparing documents for print
Proofreading and editing copy
Creating slideshows
Embedding video and images

Enter the classic resume buzz phrase:

Proficient in Microsoft Office

Proficient in Microsoft Office typically means you are able to use MS Word to edit text documents, create templates, and automate the creation of tables of content. Proficient in Excel means running and creating functions, pivot tables, and charts. Plus, you can make slideshows in PowerPoint.

That's the theory. In practice, most candidates feel obliged to use this phrase on their resume without really being able to do anything more than treat spreadsheets as tables and write up a report on Word.

Here's what to do instead:

How to Describe Proficiency in Microsoft Office on a Resume

Fluent in Microsoft Word, proficient in Microsoft Excel—it can be phrased in many different ways on your resume, but you have to remember that it means more than just editing text or summing up cells.

So if you have only those basic skills in Microsoft Office—

Leave them out. Why?

Firstly, everybody knows the essentials of the Office suite. It’s a basic know-how.

Secondly, you might confuse the recruiter. They see proficient in Excel and they think: macros, pivot tables, and VLOOKUP. What you think: adding a row, formatting a table, and removing duplicates.

When given a question about it or even worse—a practical task—you will turn out as a liar. And that means an instant “No, thank you.”

So save your reputation and don’t list Microsoft Office skills which you only have a basic grasp of.

When else listing MS Office on a resume is a poor decision?

When it’s obvious that you can use it.

You don’t need to mention MS Office if you’re high-tech professional.

Or if you’re after a job that won’t probably require MS Office skills, like nursing, graphic design, or let’s say acting.

Now, let’s check what proficiency in Microsoft Office really means:

Microsoft Word Skills

Page setup
Text formatting
Editing
Creating templates
Textboxes
SmartArt
Quick Access
Title and ribbon bar
Spellcheck
Grammar check

Microsoft Excel Skills

Spreadsheets
Workbooks
Formulas
Data Linking
Pivot Tables
Charts
Data Analysis
Macros and Automatization (VBA)
IF Statements
Data Validation

Microsoft Powerpoint Skills

Presentation design
Templates
Custom slides
Animation
Manuscripts
Creating graphs and charts
Presentations troubleshooting

Microsoft Outlook Skills

Navigation
Archivization
Assigning tasks
Tasks distribution
Configuring email settings
Email filters
Calendar management
Scheduling

All those technical skills require a healthy dose of softer skills:

Data entry
Data analysis
Analytical skills
Written communication
Collaboration
Teamwork
Document sharing
Design

See? That’s quite a lot of skills. And if you can tick only some of those points for each MS Office component, it means you’re not proficient.

Microsoft Office Proficiency Levels

MS Office proficiency is sometimes described in terms of levels of mastery: beginner, intermediate, advanced. The lowest level lets users open or create documents, enter or update information. Intermediate users would be able to make bulk changes or operations. Advanced users should be able to run macros and create their own, use VLOOKUP and pivot tables.

On Word, they'd be able to add multimedia and create automatic tables of content. As you can see, different tools present different levels of challenge. Plus, recruiters don't quite like self-evaluations, so it's best to skip proficiency levels and explain what it is exactly that you can do.

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