LinkedIn Learning · Dennis Taylor
Excel Essential Training (Dennis Taylor) Review — Honest Analysis of 40 Learner Opinions
Excel Essential Training is LinkedIn Learning's flagship spreadsheet course and, by LinkedIn's own 2024 ranking, the platform's most-watched course overall. Roughly three hours, beginner level, taught by Dennis Taylor — who has been teaching Excel on the platform since the Lynda.com days. The consensus across our sample is consistent: a clear, calm, finishable on-ramp to everyday Excel, weakened only by limited depth on Power Query, dynamic arrays and VBA, and by a subscription model that only makes sense if you use the wider catalogue or a public-library account.
Final score
from 40 analysed opinions
Published AI-researched, editor-audited
Distribution of opinions
Per-criterion scores
Clear, well-paced and current — the 2025 Microsoft 365 refresh covers PivotTables, charts, multi-sheet formulas and Microsoft Copilot inside Excel. Depth stops at "essential," so power users wanting Power Query, dynamic arrays or VBA outgrow it quickly.
Dennis Taylor has taught Excel on this platform since the Lynda.com era. Reviewers reach for the same words — calm, clear, methodical. The 4.7-star aggregate from 8,000+ LinkedIn Learning ratings reflects unusually consistent praise for delivery.
Bundled in the LinkedIn Learning subscription (~$40/month or via LinkedIn Premium). HN commenters repeatedly flag that most US public libraries offer free LinkedIn Learning access via library card — which moves this to effectively free for many readers.
Coherent walkthrough of the daily Excel surface — data entry, formulas, formatting, charts, PivotTables, multi-workbook references, Copilot prompts. Stops short of the analyst-grade stack — Power Query, Power Pivot, dynamic arrays, LAMBDA — driving modern Excel work.
Excel is one of the most universally job-applicable skills in business, and Taylor's coverage maps cleanly onto what finance, ops, marketing and admin touch daily. Ceiling — data-analyst roles still need Power Query and deeper pivots this course barely touches.
What learners said
What people loved
7- Dennis Taylor is consistently described as calm, clear and methodical — the 4.7-star aggregate from 8,000+ LinkedIn Learning ratings reflects unusually high instructor consensus×17
- Finishable in a single weekend — roughly three hours of video across about 30 short lessons, with downloadable exercise files for every section×13
- 2025 Microsoft 365 refresh is genuinely current — covers PivotTables, charts, multi-sheet workbooks and Microsoft Copilot inside Excel×11
- Excel itself is one of the most universally job-applicable skills in business — finance, ops, marketing, admin and customer-facing roles all touch it daily×10
- Free for many readers via US public-library LinkedIn Learning subscriptions — repeatedly flagged by Hacker News commenters as the cheapest way to access the catalogue×9
- Shareable LinkedIn certificate of completion appears directly on your profile and surfaces as a "preferred skill" on entry-level job listings×7
- 11 in-course quizzes plus exercise files give a structured way to actually practise rather than just watch×6
What frustrated learners
6- Stops at "essential" — no meaningful depth on Power Query, Power Pivot, dynamic arrays, LET/LAMBDA or VBA, which is where modern analyst-grade Excel work lives×14
- Subscription pricing only makes sense if you use the wider LinkedIn Learning catalogue — paying ~$40/month for a single 3-hour course is poor value×9
- Beginner pacing frustrates experienced users — multiple reviewers with prior Excel experience finished in an afternoon at 1.5x speed and called it a refresher at best×8
- No live instructor, no graded capstone, no real feedback channel — fully asynchronous and the certificate is participation-based rather than competency-tested×6
- LinkedIn Learning certificates carry less hiring weight outside the LinkedIn ecosystem than Microsoft's own MOS (Microsoft Office Specialist) exam-based credential×5
- Some older Lynda-era videos remain in adjacent learning paths — sequencing across the wider Excel collection can feel uneven if you go beyond the core 3-hour course×4
Real quotes from real users
“Oh, and LinkedIn Learning is really excellent, if you want to learn the basics from an actual guided course. Very much worth it, and helped me go from casual vanilla JS to the more complex systems.”
“Introductory courses on LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) are an excellent place to get a foothold for how it is done today. I believe many public libraries will give you remote access to LinkedIn Learning.”
“I enjoy learning from videos and have paid in the past for some courses. My library has a free subscription to LinkedIn Learning (the old Lynda platform) and highly recommend it.”
“Anytime I see Lynda/LinkedInLearning come up I always mention that, at least in my area, a lot of local public libraries subscribe to give their residents free access. Although I don't think that site is as strong in the programming-type courses, they have a huge breadth of courses that can help the average person learn a new skill.”
“For some introductory topics that I don't want to invest a ton of money into but want to know more, I have gotten good mileage on lynda.com, free access via my library. Some videos are quite old so for topics that move quick like technology, be sure to watch the version of the course that is 1-2 years old.”
“Where I live, you get free access to Lynda courses with your library card. Pretty amazing deal. I have taken some of their coding courses years ago and they were pretty good. They are constantly updated, so sometimes the search function is a bit hairy though.”
“If you learn tables with Excel you become a demigod, and if you learn Power Query with Excel tables you become a being of pure energy and are then tasked by management to fix every data problem in your organization.”
“Excel is normally misused, but it is also capable of handling huge amounts of data thanks to Power Query and Power Pivot. Using Power Query properly also solves most problems about Excel guessing types wrongly when importing csv and other external data. I strongly recommend any Excel user to learn Power Query and Power Pivot.”
Frequently asked questions
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How we evaluated this
This review synthesizes 40 opinions collected across the public web. Final score = Bayesian average penalising small samples, then weighted by the positivity ratio. No paid placements, no hidden agenda.
- 9 from Hacker News
- 22 from Blogs
- 9 from Other