About MO-400 Exam
The Microsoft MO-400 exam, which in full is Microsoft Outlook (Outlook and Outlook 2019) targets mid-level IT specialists tasked with enhancing professional correspondence, scheduling appointments, and creating calendars. These individuals deal with a variety of application examples such as arranging meetings, sending messages, and coordinating resource-building strategies. Thus, exam candidates are required to showcase their ability to apply the key Outlook features in their daily duties and perform their tasks independently.
Certification Level and Target Audience
Passing the Microsoft MO-400 exam alone will earn you the Microsoft Office Specialist: Outlook Associate (Outlook and Outlook 2019) certification. This is a mid-level training program that’s meant for business users and other individuals who are constantly involved in managing the Microsoft Outlook features and functionalities. By obtaining this certificate, you will be demonstrating your technical aptitude for customizing the Outlook user interface, creating and inserting graphic elements, and sending and responding to meeting requests and emails. Candidates who enroll in this accreditation should have a cumulative 150 hours of hands-on experience or instruction working with Outlook.
Microsoft MO-400 Exam Details
MO-400 exam can be taken in English, Spanish, French, Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Korean, German, Dutch, and Chinese (Simplified) languages. This exam focuses on one’s ability to manage the features of Microsoft Outlook and costs $100 per attempt. It can be scheduled on the Pearson VUE website and taken from the same platform after satisfying all the prerequisites.
Microsoft MO-400 General Exam Topics
During the exam, the candidates should prove that they have the following skills:
1. Managing Outlook settings and processes
This section of the syllabus will address your knowledge of customizing outlook settings as well as configuring settings for mail, performing search operations, and printing and saving information. The concepts covered in this domain will validate your skills in adding accounts, creating search folders, printing messages, contacts, calendars, and tasks, saving messages, and creating, assigning, as well as modifying signatures just to mention a few.
2. Managing messages
For this part of the test, the candidates should show their knowledge of creating messages as well as organizing and managing them, and inserting message content. Some of the skills tested here include adding or removing message attachments, designating recipients using blind courtesy copy (BCC) and courtesy copy (CC), forwarding and replying to messages, inserting images and hyperlinks, sorting messages, creating folders, categorizing messages, ignoring conversations, and flagging received messages.
3. Managing schedules
This domain addresses three key tasks that cover skills in creating and managing calendars; creating appointments, events, and meetings; and organizing and managing appointments, events, and meetings. To guarantee your success in this section, it's important to understand the concepts of creating and setting calendar items, setting availability, managing multiple calendars, cancelling meetings, and responding to invitations, among other technical activities.
4. Managing contacts and tasks
This domain is also centered on three crucial aspects, including creating and managing contact records, contact groups, and tasks. The key emphasis here will be to find out if the candidate is familiar with sharing contacts, creating and deleting contact groups, updating contacts, creating and managing tasks, editing contact information, and adding contacts, among other skills.
Potential Job Opportunities
Some of the most suitable roles for candidates who pass MO-400 exam and get accredited are disclosed below:
- Microsoft Office Specialist
Becoming a Microsoft Office Specialist entails demonstrating your expertise in working with Microsoft Office tools and products such as Word, Excel, and Outlook. Getting into this role will confirm your ability to operate and create functions, charts, and pivot tables. You also need to show that you can design slideshows using PowerPoint, create and edit templates and text documents, and automate the tables of content. To obtain all the skills you need to succeed in this role, it might be necessary to combine different courses covering multiple products. For instance, you may want to pass MO-400 exam to master the Outlook administration skills and combine them with the knowledge of Microsoft Word by acing the Microsoft MO-100 exam. Going by the latest market trends, a typical Microsoft Office Specialist earns an average annual salary of $54k as per PayScale.com.
- IT Support Technician
IT Support Technicians prove their knowledge of the installation and configuration of computer hardware, systems, software, networks, scanners, and printers. These individuals are known for their timely response to client requests and server issues and their mastery of Microsoft products and tools. These individuals offer technical support to internal teams and outside clients by phone or in-person and also demonstrate their ability to monitor or maintain networks and computer systems. If you are going to work with larger organizations as a support technician, you should develop the right interpersonal skills as well as soft skills to enable you to work collaboratively as part of a well-trained IT department with a clear goal. Consequently, you will get an average salary of $46k per year in this role, according to PayScale.
- Technical Support Engineer
Technical support engineers install and configure computer systems, diagnose hardware and software problems, and solve technical issues. These individuals can work on-site or over the phone, providing critical help to maximize business growth. As the company’s go-to technical support engineer, you will be required to demonstrate your expertise in evaluating and prioritizing customer cases, acting as the primary link between your organization and clients, and working closely with other staff members such as the sales department, engineering team, and consultancy team to realize the organization’s critical objectives. Ultimately, you will make an average salary of about $65k per year working as a technical support engineer, according to PayScale research.
Describing Certification Path
The next best path to take after passing the Microsoft MO-400 exam is to go for the Microsoft Office Specialist: Associate (Office 365 and Office 2019) certification. It will validate your ability to manage a ton of Office programs. It and requires success in any three exams chosen from the options listed below:
- MO-100 is focused on Microsoft Word
- MO-200 is all about Microsoft Excel
- MO-300 deals with Microsoft PowerPoint
- MO-400 is about Microsoft Outlook
