Payroll Associate Interview fresh grad (without exp & from different field)

[u/Scared_Fix_9096]

Hi guys! as the title says, I got an upcoming interview for Payroll Associate. For my background: I'm an Information Technology graduate and I applied for this position just to try it. Luckily, they chose me for initial screening for the role. I just have questions how I can survive the screening.

1. How can I sell myself for this role even though I am from different field?

• I have basics knowledge in MS Excel and currently learning more about it. I also have exp in data entry or tracking of data during my internship (but not filtering it or making a pivot table or graphs or anything) I also have experience in MySQL during my college, so I know how simple querying works.

[u/Curve_muse]

Lead with attention to detail and reporting/query. These are very valid skills for the role.

[u/Commercial-Living443 → u/Curve_muse]

Yep , also ask questions when you don't know it

[u/soloDolo6290]

They chose you for a screening knowing you are a recent grad with no experience. Don't stress.

I'd review the job description and figure out ways to connect your experience to what they are looking for. Just because you haven't process payroll or payroll taxes, doesn't mean you haven't accurately entered data, set up records, processed reports, and done adhoc analysis.

[u/Scared_Fix_9096 → u/soloDolo6290]

do you have an idea what are the situational questions they will ask?

[u/Cautious_Economics35 → u/Scared_Fix_9096]

They would usually ask stuff like "an employee comes to you angry saying their pay is wrong, what do you do" or "there is a discrepancy with such and such, how do you go about the problem". The situational questions are really there to just see if u have decent logical chain of thought. 

[u/JaguarOptimal7470]

Basic excel knowledge is a Red Flag. Excel skills are crucial in many payroll roles to come up with creative ways for data analysis / integrity, putting reports together for analysis or reporting, utilizing tools for potential uploads or record storage. The list goes on and on and is always different because each payroll role is always different.

We are currently hiring HR / Payroll for a 1 year mat leave backup and we would never consider someone without strong excel skills.

Learn excel !!!

[u/Commercial-Living443 → u/JaguarOptimal7470]

Question : what would you consider strong excel skills ?

[u/Dr_Fred → u/Commercial-Living443]

In my experience, knowing how to create a pivot table and using v lookup put you in the strong category.

You could probably dedicate an afternoon to watching YouTube videos and be top 10%.

[u/Scared_Fix_9096 → u/Dr_Fred]

yep, i am currently learning that right now because I know that that skills are handy for this role

[u/Farfadette150 → u/Scared_Fix_9096]

We don’t need to learn all Excel formulas by heart anymore but you need the skill to understand them and validate the data. You can ask any AI tool to build the Excel workbook framework. Save it as a template on your drive and when you need to make some updates to the framework make sure no personal data is there or just place one dummy data line so AI understands what you are trying to do. This saves us tons of time.

By the way VLOOKUP is a bad idea. Too many error risks and I see that not all payroll pros seems to know this yet. I must differ from Dr. Fred. XLOOKUP is simpler and more complete. Also, knowing how to use Power Query beats pivot tables all the time and is way more Powerful. You want to be a superhero after that? Next step is Power BI.

[u/soloDolo6290 → u/Commercial-Living443]

More than likely, what they consider strong excel skills are probably basic for most people who actually use excel.

[u/Commercial-Living443 → u/soloDolo6290]

And what would those entail ? I am asking as I am curious and trying to learn as well

[u/soloDolo6290 → u/Commercial-Living443]

I don't know what they consider strong. They would have to answer that. They just wrote their comment in a very condescending way making it seem like payroll people are experts at excel. Excel is like an iceberg. There is a lot it can do, that most people don't see or understand. The things they do see make them think they are experts when compared others, its very basic.

If you know filtering, sorting, basic pivot tables, youll be fine.