I just started a new job about 3 weeks ago. Either Monday or Tuesday, I have to train someone in Microsoft Excel 2007, I put on my resume that I am familiar with it, which I am. But I don't think I know enough to really train someone on it. I don't want to tell them that I can't do it, so I'm just going to do my best with it. Can someone give me any ideas on how to bring it to them, or can help me understand how to use it more?

There's a ton of tutorials online for it. You can learn it really fast that way

Wow, three weeks and they have you training someone?
Yeesh.

I'm very familiar with it, but I don't think I'd be able to train anyone either :(

What kind of stuff do they want you to train them on?

Just inputting information and like .. making the rows and columns bigger or smaller is easy. However, if your job requires you to use it to compute things you might want to familiarize yourself with the formulas if you're not already.

Like in "Row 1, Column C" you're trying to get the solution to an amount of hours worked in Column "1" (Monday) and Column "2" (Tuesday) ... in Column "C" you would put "=1A+1B" etc. Learning how to properly reference the cells is the hardest part, but it really does work like an algebraic equation.

Is that what you're unsure of?

Yes, the formulas is what I'm not real sure how to explain to someone.

I've spent well over two years grappling with Excel for my uni course (it was 30% of my assessment in my third year), and got very friendly with it last year when it basically became my life - I used it to store my experimental research data, calculate all sorts of stuff, chart things, and perform statistical analysis (t-tests, standard error, anova, and so on).

Firstly I'd show them how you can reference a cell (like make one cell equal another) by typing = and then either typing the cell reference, or by clicking on it.

Then I'd run through with them the common formulas.

Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing

Sum and average

Min and max (if required)

Variance and t-tests (if required)

And also explain to them the concept of grouping references with parentheses (), like how you would do in mathematics in real life, e.g.

2C+2D/4D

is different to

(2C+2D)/4D

Then I'd show them how to make a chart, if the job requires it.

Also show them how to create a new sheet within the same workbook (clicking the little sheet tab at the bottom) and show them how to reference between sheets.

MAYBE show them the difference between Paste and Paste Special (where you can select which attributes of the clipboarded data you want to preserve).

Maybe also show them Transpose, where if you copy a two rows of three things (2x3), it will paste into two columns of three things(3x2).

Also might wanna throw in formatting, like bold, italic, underline, column width, font size, borders, all that fun stuff!

Whatever you do, make sure there's a logical flow/order to it to avoid confusing the person and giving them the chance to ask the right questions at the right time.

Here's what I would do,

-Find out what sorts of things they'll be doing with the program
-Practice by yourself so that you're familiar with those operations
-Have them watch while you do it
-You watch while they do it

It wouldn't be a bad idea to have some notes to reference if you can't remember where something is or something like that (I would need this because office 2007 is a jumbled mess in my opinion). Also encourage them to take notes so they don't keep coming back to you asking "how do I do this again?"

Well, being familiar with a program and teaching it to someone are two totally different things. Did you put on your resume that you can train others, or just that you knew Excel?

I'd never teach computer things to anyone. I either intuitively figure it out...or go to Google.

I just put that I'm familiar with it. I never said I knew enough to teach it to someone. But looks like that's how they took it. lol

That sucks. I've never been one for Excel. As a matter of fact, when Microsoft bailed on Frontpage and came out with Expressions they decided to format Expressions like Excel and Word. Since I suck at Excel, you can imagine I was a bit pissed. But from what my brother said, the newest Microsoft tried to make everything similar from one program to another. That might help make some of it less confusing. However, I would take the advice of Music God and get online and start reading up. Or maybe you could go to the library and see if a Book for Dummies is available on Excel?