BPM Interview Flashcards
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What makes you special?
I think something that makes me unique is my experience working as an elementary school teacher’s aide for the summer. For that position, I had to develop communications skills that would allow me to effectively talk to children, parents, peers, and teachers and I was able to hone the ability to break concepts down to different levels of simplicity while also maintaining the fact that the person I am talking to understands me. Which is crucial in assurance as I will be speaking both with accounting professionals and with clients.
As an example, I was helping out in a science class and one day we were learning about the color spectrum and how light affects the colors that we see because color affects wavelength frequency. I understood that perfectly fine, but wavelengths to fifth graders can be hard to conceptualize. So, I focused on the fact that wavelengths vibrating at different frequencies is what makes colors appear and equated how fast a wavelength moves to certain colors.
Tell me about yourself.
I’m a sophomore at the University of San Francisco and I just recently switched my major to accounting after taking a lot of interest in my principles of financial accounting class that I’m taking with Professor Gunn. I’m originally from Hawai’i, but I plan to stay up here in California for the future. At the moment, I’m still exploring the accounting field but I think that assurance is the perfect place for me to start because I would be able to get experience in a ton of different industries.
What would you do if you didn’t have to go to work or school?
I would probably take the time to indulge in more artistic ventures like developing my writing and drawing skills or learning new languages. I would also try to do more volunteer work in different communities and places in order to gain a better understanding of different communities. I’d also probably still take some classes in things like finance and management because I have an interest in both.
Why did you choose accounting?
I chose accounting because I enjoy the broader aspects of business and industry, like being able to provide services to people and innovate in order to create a better world, and I would like to get a taste of all of them. Which is something that I can do with accounting because it is needed in every sector of business. It is also an avenue to apply critical thinking and analytics skills in ways that can benefit businesses. I also really like the constant problem solving aspect of the job because it means that there is always something new to consider and a new challenge to overcome.
Why BPM? What makes you want to work at BPM?
I really like the company mission statement and the name itself. Especially in cities like San Francisco and San Jose where I’ve been to tons of small businesses and gotten some incredible artwork and food, I think that it is important to give entrepreneurs as much help as we can so that they can stay in business. It’s part of why I like assurance as well, I would love to be a part of a team that helps small businesses take confident steps forward. I’ve also heard professor Gunn talk about the firm and how rewarding he has found working with small business owners and smaller clients.
I also appreciate how the firm offers a lot of personal development opportunities to employees. I plan on pursuing a CPA license myself, and seeing that I would love to have that kind of company support behind me.
Since BPM works with smaller businesses, I also think that it is a perfect place to be able to explore different industries and experience different types of work.
Company name and mission – because people matter
Heard from Rich Gunn how he enjoys working with smaller businesses
Helping small business – been to places like SF and SJ with incredible food/art small businesses
Want to do my best to help they stay open and take the right steps forward
What do you know about BPM?
From my understanding, BPM is a comprehensive accounting and finance firm that also specializes in cybersecurity. I’ve heard from Professor Gunn that there are also a lot of smaller niches within each field such as life sciences, real estate, and even wine. I also appreciate the client-centric approach that is taken as well as the commitment to innovation.
I also appreciate how tech focused the company is and how it keeps up with trends. For example that new article about how AI factors into accounting and cybersecurity
Do you know what assurance is?
I have a general understanding that assurance is going through a businesses past financial statements and audits to confirm that they fall within certain standards which can be GAAP, governmental, or risk assessment. Also, helping companies understand their finances so that they can create a clear path forward.
I have also heard from Professor Gunn that assurance can include systems management.
What attracted you to assurance?
I like how it creates a direct avenue into assisting small business owners with their businesses by helping them understand and meet the standards that are set in place. It’s not quite the same, but I’ve been in a position with college applications where there was so much information just thrown at me that I had no idea where to even begin and no idea what a good answer to their questions even looked like. When I got some help from my mom though, who had been through the process before and guided me through the steps and helped me create good answers, everything just fell into place and I felt a lot more confident in my future. I would like to be able to give that kind of feeling back to people.
Direct avenue into assisting small business owners – helping them understand and meet the set standards
Example with confusing college apps and mom
I want to be able to do the same thing for small business owners
What are some of your strengths and weaknesses?
Consistently Able to Meet Deadlines
I always make sure that school work is turned in on or before the due date with my academic planner strategy
For a class that I’m taking right now, we are creating a literary magazine and for the first few months we had hard deadlines where we had to read a certain amount of stories by the Tuesday and Thursday class periods. In order to read four to five multi-page stories within days, I created my own reading schedule that I was able to stick to because I centered it around other work for class that I knew was due. As a result, I was able to critically read all the pieces that I needed to by the deadlines and give a well thought out opinion on each piece.
Public Speaking
I have a plan to work on my skills through classroom opportunities
Would also love to develop them in a professional setting
For a speech in a rhetorical writing class, I practiced the entire night before, but when I got up in front of everybody, I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking a bit and I forgot small details that threw my storytelling off. I was able to get the main points across, but it wasn’t in the way I had hoped or planned for.
Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker and how you handled it.
I haven’t had a conflict with a coworker, but I have had one with my suitemates. We had a disagreement about how often we should take out the trash, which resulted in the bin sometimes overflowing because we could not agree on whose turn it was to take it out. In order to solve this, I asked to meet with them personally to discuss a cleaning schedule and to have us each give our perspectives on the situation. In the end, we managed to come to an agreement that we would come up with a schedule so that no one felt unfair about having to take out the trash more than someone else.
Tell me about a time you encountered a challenge and how you dealt with it.
One challenge that remains in my mind is when I took an economics class in the first semester of college. All of the material and concepts were completely foreign to me, so it felt like being thrown into the deep end without a life vest. Luckily, I recognized this fact early on and had the time I needed to self-study, seek out help from my professor, and collaborate with other students to create a well -rounded understanding of the material.
Tell me about a project you have initiated. What influenced you to begin the project?
Recently, I initiated a project for a class where we create a literary magazine. Part of my job is to help with publicity for our magazine, which we mainly do through our instagram account. In the past, the posts have mostly been either staff photos or flyers for events, but I thought that we should be more active in order to engage more people and to hopefully reach new people. In order to do this, I suggested the idea of posting quotes from past issues alongside photos to add some variety to the feed and to hopefully catch people’s eye. What really influenced me to start this project was the fact that I want more people to know about and read the literary magazine because there is so much incredible writing and art that is published, and I felt that I had the social media knowledge to help do so.
After laying the groundwork and schedule, I was able to smoothly implement this into the rest of our publicity duties, and we have been able to post a lot of great snippets from past issues.
Tell me about a time in which you had to use your written communication skills in order to get across an important point.
An event that sticks out where I had to use written communication to get across a point is from my rhetorical writing class. We had a group assignment where we read a book and designed a website around the content that we would then go on to present to the class. For this, I had to first understand the content of my book, which was about conspiracy theories and the reasoning why people believe in them, and break the academic language down into something more understandable.
This went well in the presentation overall and I could tell that my classmates got a thorough understanding because they asked questions and wanted to further discuss some of the points that I brought up.
