interview questions and answers for finance

Sample finance interview questions with practical answer guidelines. Prepare for success in your finance interview and secure the financial job opportunity. You have to collect numerous possible questions you can be asked there and prepare lucidly to answer them.

Here are some questions that candidates must prepared before they proceed for their interviews.

Interview Questions Related to Finance

• Tell me about yourself?
• Why did you leave your last job?
• What is your greatest weakness?
• What experience do you have in Finance field?
• What have you done to improve your Finance knowledge in the last year?
• What have you learned from mistakes on the Finance job?
• What made you choose to apply to Finance…position?
• What are top 3 knowledge/top 3 skills for Finance…position?

Stock management

• Describe the finance functions within a company and where you see yourself fitting.
• Which is a better indication of firm's growth? Balance sheet or income of statements?
• What’s a Price/Earning (P/E) ratio and how do you use it?
• what if 2 companies have the same value of P/E ratios, which company does you think is better?
• How would you explain net present value to non-finance major?
• Name some newspapers that you read for financial news of global economy?
• What is our company’s stock price? How would you forecast the future stock price for next year?

General finance interview questions

• Can you describe a recent situation in which you accomplished an important objectivein a brief period of time?
• Describe some problems that you faced while working on your previous position?
• How do you take challenges?
• Are you willing to work in shifts?
• What is the thing you like the most in the world? Why?
• What is the thing you dislike the most in the world? Why?
• What does success mean to you?
• What major factors drive mergers and acquisitions?
• What is goodwill? How does it affect net income?
• What is working capital?
• What are deferred taxes?

Audit interview questions

• What the procedures or process involved in the preparation for the audit?
• What is Web Audit?
• What differentiates between pay check and pay slip?
• What are the different types of internal audit?
• What is data audit stored?
• What is the difference between an internal audit and the annual external audit?
• What is Internal Audit?6. What is meant by Single Audit process?

Financial analyst

• How do you manage the online finance operations and describe the method to prepare a report?
• What are the significant profile responsibilities of a finance analyst?
• Describe a situation where you did a mistake in an important report and realized it after the submission of report?
• What is recession and discuss factors that cause recession?
• Tell us a situation which is the best example for your ability to handle conflicts and issues?
• What skills should a financial analyst possess?
• If you are selected when would you like to join?
• What are your academic qualifications? Name the institution from where you have done your post graduation?
• How do you rate your computer skills?
• Why did you resign from your previous job? How long have you been working with your previous organization?
• How does goodwill affect the net economy of a firm?
• Do you think you’re able to handle the work load of this job? How do you deal with stressful circumstances?
• What stimulates you to join this field?
• Describe a current event in the market that has significantly affected the market?

Financial controller

• As our Financial Controller you will be leading a team of direct reports and other financial professionals?
• Tell us a time when you worked well with external auditors, audit committee and Board of Directors. Also, describe a situation when it was difficult to build rapport with these groups?
• What is your experience is preparing and presenting financial information for quarterly and annual reports? What were some of the complexities of the report?
• Describe your day to day activities as a Corporate Controller?
• How you manage the accounting operations including the review of journal entries, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable and statutory reporting?
• What process do you use to ensure accuracy?
• What is the largest group you have managed?
• What tools and processes do you take to prepare, analyze and present monthly, quarterly and annual operating results for each department? How is your data collected
• Describe the company you worked for and how many employees worked there?
• When working on a project, describe a time when you provided strategic analysis as required to drive improved decision making. What was the situation? How did you come up with your resolutions?
• What steps do you take to establish and monitor internal controls to ensure that accounting activities are in accordance with established legal regulatory and company policies and procedures?

Corporate Finance

• What happens to a company’s equity when assets rise $1 million and liabilities fall $2million?
• What does it mean when cash flow from operations on a company’s cash flow statement is negative? Is this bad news? If so, is it dangerous?
• Suppose that you constructed a pro forma balance sheet for a company and the estimate for external funding required was negative. How would you interpret this result?
• How will a decrease in financial leverage affect a company’s cost of equity capital, if at all? How will it affect a company’s equity beta?
• If you want to assess the health of a company and you could choose between looking at 3 years of income statements or 3 years of balance sheets, which would you choose and why?
• What are some reasons why a company might tap the high yield market?
• Finance managers today face many challenges in governance and reporting as a result of recent legislation and events. Given what you know about these recent news events and legislation, what difficulties do you think finance managers are dealing with today?
• What could a company do with excess cash on the balance sheet?•
• What’s the difference between IRR, NPV and Payback?
• What are the impacts on earnings if a company builds a new factory using debt? operatinglease? capital lease? cash?•
• Why would a company repurchase its own stock? What signals (positive & negative) does this send to the market?
• When would you take a project with a negative NPV?
• What is Sarbanes Oxley and what are the implications?
• Why might a company choose debt over equity financing, or vice versa?
• What are the ways a company can manipulate cash flows?
• What are the primary causes of bankruptcy and what are the options available to a company?
• Let’s say that I have a bond with a 5% coupon. What happens to the market price when the prevailing interest rates rise to 8%? How are the coupons affected?• Which corporate bond would have a higher coupon, a AAA or a BBB? What are the annual payments received by the owner of a five year zero coupon bond?
• Would you rather have $___ today or $1 a day for the rest of your life? How would you go about valuing this amount?

Mergers & Acquisitions

• What do you think of Ben Bernanke and how is he likely to differ from Greenspan?
• What do you think of the economy and interest rates?
• What is LIBOR? How is it often used?
• What does the yield curve currently look like, and what does that mean?
• What happened in the markets during the past 3 months?
• Do you read the Wall Street Journal everyday? What is on today ‘s front page?
• What sources of information would you use to analyze a company?
• What are the factors that affect option pricing? Explain put-call parity.
• If the stock market in the United States is efficient, how do you explain the fact that some people make very high returns?
• Differentiate between I-banking and Private Equity?
• Would it be more difficult to reconcile very high returns with efficient markets if the same people made extraordinary returns year after year?
• Why would two companies merge? What major factors drive mergers and acquisitions?
• What’s the difference between I-banking and Private Equity?
• Would you make an offer to buy a company at its current stock price?
• If a company with a P/E of 20 acquires a company with a P/E of 15 with stock, is the transaction accretive or dilutive?
• What is the difference between a stock purchase and an asset purchase?
• What are the major differences between purchase and pooling accounting?
• What is the current state of both methods of accounting?
• What are some common anti-takeover tactics?
• Would you pay more for an asset/company with a tax basis of 100 or a tax basis of 0? Why?
• Macroeconomics/Capital Markets/Investment Theory?
• Where do you think interest rates will be 1 year from now?
• Who is Alan Greenspan and what does he do?

Financial services

• Explain the different quality services we provide to our customers?
• Which is your biggest weakness which you think you are not able to overcome till now?
• Do you agree with offered perks and incentives?
• If you have any queries regarding the job profile, then please feel free to get them clear?
• What made you discontented about your previous job? Share the reason behind your resignation?
• What are your educational skills in Finance? Name the institution from where have you completed your specialization in Finance sector?
• What do you mean by Finance services? How will you familiarize the customers with our products?
• What is the current service tax rate in Finance sector?
• Explain the private clients and private equity? Which method do you use to calculate company’s asset invested in external projects?
• In which conditions a company prefers a debt over equity finance?

Develop a good understanding of the The Behavioral Interview and be able to successfully answer those finance interview questions that explore different behaviors or competencies.