Using a Cell as Reference with possible prefix/suffix

I am trying to get a count of records based on a cell reference. Currently i'm using:

=COUNTIFS(Applicants!$E:$E,"*?*",Applicants!$L:$L,Reference!$A$2,Applicants!$I:$I,"*Admin*",Applicants!$N:$N,"*RG-SCAL*")

Which works... However for the number of regions and variations I might encounter I was hoping to replace "*Admin*" and "*RG-SCAL*" with cell references.

The goal would be to replace Admin with a value in A2 and "*RG-SCAL*" with a value in B1.

Try this:

=COUNTIFS(Applicants!$E:$E,"*?*",Applicants!$L:$L,Reference!$A$2,Applicants!$I:$I,"*"&A2&"*",Applicants!$N:$N,"*"&B2&"*")

Hope this helps.

Pete

Worked like a charm! Thanks for quick response.

Glad to be able to help, and thanks for the rep.

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Pete