(usefulness) Why do companies love lookup functions (vlookup and hlookup)??

Hello,

First of all, this is not a DATA/MACRO/CHART doubt, it's just a excel usefulness doubt.

I'm young and I have had only one job so far.
I've used Vlookup or Hlookup few times for very simple tasks and it wasn't the best function for the job.
Usually, companies ask if you know how to use them.

My doubt:
Why is it so important to companies? Does anyone have a sheet example which Vlookup or Hlookup is crucial or the best function for the job?


I see it as a useless function and I know I'm wrong. I just need some help to figure it out.

Thanks

I don't have any specific issue. I was just wondering. I think the same way as you do
Is it against the rules of the forum? (I didn't find "wondering" topics)

Originally Posted by PedroSchulz

Does anyone have a sheet example which Vlookup or Hlookup is crucial or the best function for the job?

Yes, here are search results on this forum for "lookup"; these are typically people who are looking to pull data from a reference table to generate some output in their daily life, who ran into a problem doing so. Just reading through those threads should give you an idea for what the scope of "lookup" problems are!

Literally the last lookup table I worked with in my job was:
Given a product type for a pipe (eg, syrup or steam or something),
go grab 1) the three-word code used in the drawing as part of it's line name, and 2) the software spec used for modeling it.

Nice. Thank you all. I'll search through the forum