VLOOKUP with wildcards returning N/A for String Search

[EvilHidden]

I'm using VLOOKUP to search a string of text for a value. I'm using two wildcards surrounding the lookup value as referenced in other posts.

My Data (Sheet 3):

B	C
Thousands of emails	Role1
Thousands of emails	Role2
Thousands of emails	Role3
Thousands of emails	Role4
Thousands of emails	Role5

My Lookup:

C	D
Singular Email	=VLOOKUP("*"&C2&"*",Sheet3!$B$1:$C$7,2,FALSE)

I'm getting a N/A on the return and it's driving my mildly insane. The value is clearly there...it's literally the first one and should return "Role1".

Any help appreciated.

[MrShorty]

I cannot replicate the behavior. If I make up random email addresses, the VLOOKUP() function works just fine. I would guess that you need to look closer at your email strings and make absolutely certain that the given text string is within the text strings in the lookup table. I expect that we will be unable to help debug this without a more detailed example that illustrates the problem (without giving away confidential information).

[FDibbins]

You show the column letters but not the row numbers - nor do you show what is in C2?

IF you are trying to search for something in col C, but have the search range as B:C, that wont work for vlookup, the search criteria MUST be in the 1st column of the range