VBA Question

Question

Hi

I applied for a new job and I am expecting to get the a call today. I know that they are going to ask questions about VBA. I know how to use VBA, I can create simple marcos in Excel, but I am not advanced user.

What do you think they can ask for? What is the key knowledge?

Would be somethig about method, classess?

Really appreciate if you can asnwer my question.

Answer 1

Debra Dalgleish has an Excel VBA book list at:

http://www.contextures.com/xlbooks.html#VBA

My personal favorites are Excel VBA books by Walkenbach and the Pro Excel Development books by Bullen-Bovey-Green.

-  Mike Middleton, Decision Toolworks

http://www.DecisionToolworks.com

Decision Analysis Add-ins for Excel

Answer 2

Going to have to respectfully disagree with the others who have posted.

Unless you're applying for a programming job specific to VBA, I seriously doubt they're going to ask you any of those questions.  As someone who has been offering VB solutions in Excel to a few different companies over the past few months, I can say with some authority that companies don't really care how you do something, as long as it works, and has longevity (which usuallly means it's a very complicated program that takes into account many eventualities, or, more often, has simple to read and edit  code with many comments making it easy to edit in the future).

What they're likely to ask you is simple:

1. Can you write macros
2. What kind of macros have you written

On the other hand, if you've applied for a programming or software development job that requires extensive knowledge of VB, then apo_1 and Don have a point.  It'd be dishonest to say you have a working knowledge of VB if all you've done is write and record simple macros in Excel, and if you need to ask us before your interview, you probably should be applying for a different job.

If, however, you have an interview with a company that expects you to work with Excel frequently and would prefer to hire someone who can be more productive through macros and VB, then I'd go into the interview prepared to

1. Cite examples of the way you've made Excel more productive through recording and writing macros
2. Be honest about the complexity of macros you're capable of writing, or learning to write within a reasonable time frame
3. Cite examples of how quickly you've learned to do the above, and how willing you are to continue to learn VB to maximize your productivity.

Answer 3

The key knowledge should be Visual Basic itself (I/O, a few objects/functions/statements/operators, flow control, using libraries -programming knowledge), and not VBA (the Excel specifics -which you can learn in a few hours (and safely forget in the next few hours)). I consider it more honest to describe your knowledge as Excel + macros if you don't want to deal with VB questions. I can't imagine an interviewer expecting you to do the intellisense's job.. it sounds silly

Answer 4

Suggestion, take it for what its worth (more than it cost, I hope)

Be yourself, be honest.  If they ask a question you don't know the answer to, say so but explain what you'd do to FIND the answer if your new job with them required that knowledge.  If you're self-taught, tell them so and give them examples of what you've been able to learn and produce on your own.

I'd much rather have an employee I can TRUST to admit when they don't know something and who I can trust not to BS their way through what might be an important project.

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Steve Rindsberg PowerPoint MVP

PowerPoint FAQ

PPTools Add-ins for PowerPoint

Answer 5

Hopefully, for the sake of your new employeer, you will know the answers without this.

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Don Guillett MVP Excel SalesAid Software *** Email address is removed for privacy ***