36 practice questions with answers for Advanced Excel interviews in Nagpur.
Advanced Excel jobs in Nagpur
Nagpur's MIHAN SEZ hosts IT-services and BFSI delivery centres, giving central India a steady market for data and QA roles. Interviews are usually service-company style, with aptitude, technical and HR rounds.
Below are 36 questions that match the mix of service, product and domain employers hiring mis executives in Nagpur.
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01
How do you remove duplicate customers but keep the most recent record in Power Query?
Sort by Updated Date descending, then buffer the table so the sort order is respected before removing duplicates on the key:
Sorted = Table.Sort(Source,{{"UpdatedOn", Order.Descending}}),
Buffered = Table.Buffer(Sorted),
Latest = Table.Distinct(Buffered,{"CustomerID"})
Without Table.Buffer, Power Query may not keep the sorted order, so the record kept could be an older one.
02
How do you make a chart title change automatically with the selected region or month?
Build the title text in a cell with a formula, for example in B1:
="Sales trend - "&G1&" - FY 2026-27"
where G1 is the selected region. Click the chart title, click in the formula bar, type = and select B1, then press Enter:
=Dashboard!$B$1
The title now updates whenever G1 changes. The same trick works for data labels and text boxes.
03
Your query refresh fails with 'The column Amount of the table wasn't found'. What happened and how do you fix it?
The source file's header changed, for example Amount became Amount (Rs), and a step that refers to the old name, often Changed Type or Renamed Columns, breaks. Open the query, click through the steps to find the first error, and update the name or rename the column back early in the query. To prevent repeats, agree a fixed template with the data owner and avoid steps that list every column unnecessarily.
04
A column shows amounts rounded to whole rupees, but its total differs from a manual total of the displayed values by a few rupees. Why?
Number formatting only changes how a value looks; Excel still adds the full decimals stored in each cell. So the sum of hidden paise differs from the sum of the rounded figures shown. If the report must add up exactly as displayed, round the values with =ROUND(value,0) in the source formulas rather than using the Precision as displayed option, which permanently changes stored data for the whole workbook.
05
How do you do a two-way lookup that picks both a row and a column?
Use two MATCH functions inside INDEX, one for the row and one for the column:
=INDEX($B$2:$M$50,MATCH($P$2,$A$2:$A$50,0),MATCH($Q$2,$B$1:$M$1,0))
Here P2 holds the product and Q2 the month. With XLOOKUP you can nest one inside another:
=XLOOKUP(P2,A2:A50,XLOOKUP(Q2,B1:M1,B2:M50))
The inner XLOOKUP returns the whole month column, and the outer one picks the product row.
06
What are parameters in Power Query and when do you use them?
A parameter is a named value, created in Manage Parameters, that queries can reference instead of a hard-coded value. A common use is a FolderPath parameter so the same workbook works when moved to another computer or shared drive. Parameters can also hold a cut-off date or a region filter. Changing one value updates every query that uses it, which makes files easier to hand over.
07
Tell me about a time you got a last-minute analysis request. How did you handle it?
Situation: at 5 PM, my manager needed customer-wise outstanding for a client call at 9 AM. Task: deliver an accurate summary quickly. Action: I confirmed the exact question and cut-off date, pulled the ledger, built a pivot by customer and ageing bucket, cross-checked the total with the trial balance and flagged three unusual balances. Result: the report was ready by 7 PM, and my notes helped the manager answer follow-up questions in the call.
In Microsoft 365:
=COUNTA(UNIQUE(A2:A500))
=ROWS(UNIQUE(FILTER(A2:A500,A2:A500<>""))) ignores blanks
In older versions:
=SUMPRODUCT((A2:A500<>"")/COUNTIF(A2:A500,A2:A500&""))
The older formula slows down on large ranges, so for big data use a pivot table with Distinct Count via the Data Model.
09
How do you highlight an entire row when the Status column says Overdue?
Select the full data range, for example A2:H500, then Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule > Use a formula. Enter:
=$F2="Overdue"
Choose a fill colour and click OK. The dollar before F locks the column, while the relative row 2 lets the rule move down row by row, so every column in that row gets coloured when column F matches.
10
A sales file has employee names but the master list has employee IDs, and some names repeat. How do you join them safely?
Do not look up by name alone, because a duplicate name returns the first match and silently assigns sales to the wrong person. First flag duplicates in the master with COUNTIF(names,name)>1. Then build a composite key, such as name plus branch or name plus email, in both tables and look up on that. Rows still ambiguous should go back to the data owner for an ID rather than be guessed.
11
VLOOKUP returns #N/A even though you can see the value in the table. What do you check?
Check that the last argument is FALSE, then compare the two values directly with =A2=Sheet2!A5. Common causes are trailing or non-breaking spaces, one side being a number and the other text (like employee codes), and the lookup value sitting outside the first column of the range. Use LEN to spot hidden characters, and fix with TRIM, CLEAN, VALUE or by making both columns the same data type.
12
Tell me about a time you had to explain a complex Excel report to a non-technical manager.
Situation: my manager was unsure why the new incentive sheet showed lower payouts. Task: explain the logic without formulas. Action: I added a one-page summary with the slab table, walked through two real employees step by step, and used colour to show which inputs drove the result. Result: the manager understood it in one meeting, approved the sheet and asked me to add the same summary to future models.
13
Tell me about a time you automated a repetitive task.
Situation: every Monday I merged five regional order files and cleaned them by hand, which took about three hours. Task: reduce the effort and errors. Action: I built a Power Query folder import, standardised columns, fixed date locale issues and loaded the result to a pivot dashboard, then wrote a one-page guide for the team. Result: the job took ten minutes, copy-paste errors disappeared and two other teams adopted the same setup.
14
Your manager wants each product's share of sales within its region, not of the grand total. How do you show it?
Put Region and then Product in Rows, and add Sales to Values twice. For the second copy, open Value Field Settings > Show Values As > % of Parent Row Total. Each product then shows its share of its own region, and each region totals 100 percent. Using % of Grand Total instead would show share of the whole company, which answers a different question.
15
Finance wants the sales pivot by quarter of the Indian financial year, starting in April. Date grouping only gives calendar quarters. How do you solve it?
Pivot date grouping uses calendar quarters, so add a helper column in the source data. For example, fiscal quarter ="Q"&ROUNDUP((MOD(MONTH(A2)-4,12)+1)/3,0) and a fiscal year column. Use them as row fields instead of grouped dates. In Power Query or a Data Model, put these columns in a proper Date table so every report uses the same April to March logic.
16
What is the difference between a calculated column and a measure in DAX?
A calculated column is computed row by row when data is refreshed and stored in the table, like Sales[Margin] = Sales[Amount] - Sales[Cost]. It uses memory and can be used in rows, columns and slicers. A measure is computed on the fly for each cell of a pivot based on its filters, like Total Margin = SUM(Sales[Margin]). Use measures for aggregations and calculated columns only for attributes you slice by.
Loop from the bottom up so deleting a row does not skip the next one:
Sub DeleteBlankRows()
Dim r As Long, ws As Worksheet
Set ws = ActiveSheet
For r = ws.Cells(ws.Rows.Count, "B").End(xlUp).Row To 2 Step -1
If Trim(ws.Cells(r, "A").Value) = "" Then ws.Rows(r).Delete
Next r
End Sub
For big data, filtering blanks and deleting visible rows in one action is faster.
18
List the steps to build a sales and margin percentage combo chart.
Select the Month, Sales and Margin % columns and go to Insert > Recommended Charts > All Charts > Combo. Set Sales to Clustered Column and Margin % to Line with Markers, ticking Secondary Axis for Margin %. Add axis titles, format the secondary axis as 0%, add data labels only to the line if needed, and remove gridline clutter. Give it a title that states the insight, such as Margin fell while sales grew.
19
Write a custom number format that shows positives in green, negatives in red brackets and zero as a dash.
Custom formats have up to four sections separated by semicolons: positive; negative; zero; text. Press Ctrl+1 > Number > Custom and enter:
[Green]#,##0;[Red](#,##0);"-";@
For Indian lakh-crore grouping you can use:
[>=10000000]##\,##\,##\,##0;[>=100000]##\,##\,##0;##,##0
The value stays unchanged; only the display changes.
20
How do you use approximate match to apply discount or tax slabs?
Create a slab table with the lower limit of each band in ascending order and the rate next to it. Approximate match returns the row for the largest limit not greater than the value:
=VLOOKUP(B2,Slabs!$A$2:$B$6,2,TRUE)
=XLOOKUP(B2,Slabs[From],Slabs[Rate],,-1)
If B2 is 7.5 lakh and the bands start at 0, 3, 7 and 10 lakh, the 7 lakh row is returned. Unsorted data gives wrong results silently.
21
How do you build a dependent dropdown, where the City list changes based on the selected State?
Create a list of cities under each state name and give each list a named range matching the state, for example Maharashtra or Karnataka (no spaces). In B2 make a State list. In C2 use Data Validation > List with source:
=INDIRECT(B2)
In Microsoft 365 you can avoid named ranges with a spill formula in a helper cell:
=FILTER(Cities[City],Cities[State]=B2)
and point the validation at that spill range using =$H$2#.
22
What are the main elements of an Excel chart and how do you format them?
A chart has a chart title, plot area, horizontal and vertical axes, axis titles, data series, data labels, legend and gridlines. Click the plus button next to a chart to switch elements on or off, and select any element and press Ctrl+1 to open its format pane. Removing unnecessary gridlines and legends, and labelling series directly, usually makes charts cleaner.
Pie charts become unreadable with more than five or six slices, because people are poor at comparing angles. They cannot show change over time, and 3D or exploded pies distort sizes. Slices should add up to a meaningful whole; percentages from different bases should never be in one pie. A sorted bar chart almost always communicates the same information more clearly.
24
Your Power Query output has 20 lakh rows and Excel says it cannot load it to a sheet. What do you do?
A worksheet holds at most 1,048,576 rows, so the result will not fit. Choose Close & Load To and select Only Create Connection with Add this data to the Data Model. The model compresses data and can handle many millions of rows, and you analyse it with a pivot table or DAX measures. If users only need summaries, group the data inside Power Query before loading.
25
What checks do you run when cleaning a new dataset?
Check row counts against the source, then look for duplicate keys, blanks in mandatory fields, inconsistent text such as Delhi and New Delhi, extra spaces and mixed case, dates stored as text or in the wrong locale, negative or extreme numbers that look like typos, and codes losing leading zeros. Power Query's Column Quality and Column Profile views show errors, empties and distinct counts for each column quickly.
26
Commission is 2% up to 1 lakh, 5% up to 5 lakh and 8% above 5 lakh, applied as a flat rate on total sales. Write the formula.
With IFS:
=B2*IFS(B2>500000,8%,B2>100000,5%,TRUE,2%)
A cleaner and more maintainable option is a slab table (Lower: 0, 100001, 500001; Rate: 2%, 5%, 8%) with approximate match:
=B2*XLOOKUP(B2,Slab[Lower],Slab[Rate],,-1)
The -1 match mode returns the next smaller value, so changing rates only means editing the table.
27
Tell me about a time a lookup gave wrong results that nobody noticed at first.
Situation: a monthly incentive sheet used VLOOKUP with the last argument left blank, so it ran an approximate match. Task: I was asked to verify payouts before release. Action: I spotted employees getting a neighbour's target, changed every lookup to exact match with XLOOKUP, and added a count of missing IDs. Result: twelve wrong payouts were corrected before payment, and exact match became our team's standard rule.
28
You receive 12 monthly sales files and need one pivot for the year. How do you build it?
Put all files in one folder and use Data > Get Data > From File > From Folder > Combine & Transform. Power Query appends them using the first file as a sample, adds the source file name as a column and applies the same cleaning steps. Load the result as a Table or to the Data Model and build the pivot on it. Next year, adding a file to the folder and clicking Refresh All updates everything.
XLOOKUP(lookup_value, lookup_array, return_array, if_not_found, match_mode, search_mode) is available in Microsoft 365 and Excel 2021 or later:
=XLOOKUP(A2,Emp[ID],Emp[Name],"Not found")
It defaults to exact match, looks left or right, has a built-in not-found value, can return several columns at once, and can search from the bottom up. It replaces VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP and most INDEX/MATCH uses.
30
How do you look up a value using multiple criteria, such as Employee ID and Month?
In Microsoft 365, multiply logical tests so only the row matching all conditions becomes 1:
=XLOOKUP(1,(Pay[EmpID]=A2)*(Pay[Month]=B2),Pay[Salary],"Not found")
In older Excel use INDEX/MATCH entered as an array formula (Ctrl+Shift+Enter):
=INDEX(Pay[Salary],MATCH(1,(Pay[EmpID]=A2)*(Pay[Month]=B2),0))
For very large data a helper column joining ID and Month is faster.
A waterfall chart shows how a starting value moves to an ending value through a series of positive and negative steps. It is common in finance for profit bridges, such as last year's profit, plus volume growth, minus price discount, minus higher costs, giving this year's profit. Excel 2016 and later include it under Insert > Waterfall; set the first and last bars as totals so they start from zero.
32
What are slicers and timelines, and how do you connect one slicer to several pivots?
Slicers are clickable filter buttons for a field, and timelines are slider filters for dates by day, month, quarter or year. They make filtering obvious for dashboard users. To control several pivots, right-click the slicer and choose Report Connections, then tick each pivot. This works only for pivots built on the same source or data model, because they share the same pivot cache.
Recorded macros use lines like Range("A1").Select followed by Selection.Copy, which are slow, flicker the screen and break if the user clicks another sheet while the macro runs. Refer to objects directly instead: Worksheets("Data").Range("A1:D100").Copy Worksheets("Report").Range("A1"). Fully qualifying the workbook and worksheet, often with a With block, makes the code faster and predictable.
When a pivot is created, Excel stores a snapshot of the source data called the pivot cache, and the pivot reads from it, not directly from the sheet. That is why changes need a refresh. Pivots built from the same Table share one cache, which keeps file size down and lets slicers connect across them. Creating pivots from different copies of the data creates separate caches and makes the file heavier.
Switch off screen updates, automatic calculation and events while the macro runs, and always restore them:
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Application.EnableEvents = False
' ... main code ...
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
Also avoid Select, process data in arrays instead of cell by cell, and use an error handler so settings are restored on failure.
36
How do you write a user-defined function (UDF) in VBA? Give an example.
Write a Public Function in a standard module and use it like any worksheet function:
Function GSTAmount(amount As Double, Optional rate As Double = 0.18) As Double
GSTAmount = Round(amount * rate, 2)
End Function
In a cell: =GSTAmount(B2) or =GSTAmount(B2,5%). UDFs cannot change other cells or formats, and they recalculate more slowly than built-in functions, so avoid them in very large ranges.
Few big employers listed in Nagpur?
Many Nagpur candidates also apply to teams in Pune and to remote or hybrid roles. Practise the Pune set as well.
Which companies hire Advanced Excel professionals in Nagpur?
Companies with large offices in Nagpur include many IT services and product firms. Use their company pages below to practise employer-specific sets.
Are Advanced Excel interviews in Nagpur different from other cities?
The questions depend more on the company than the city. Nagpur's mix of employers decides the style: Interviews are usually service-company style, with aptitude, technical and HR rounds
How do I find Advanced Excel jobs in Nagpur?
Shortlist companies with Nagpur offices, keep your CV focused on Advanced Excel projects, apply on company career pages and job portals with the Nagpur filter, and practise the questions on this page before each interview.