Interview - Finance Analyst Flashcards
What interest you about this company?
Expedia - Tech company. Want to get in a new industry. Cool culture. Love to travel.
Starbucks - Stays ahead of the competition. New industry. I like your product.
Tell us about yourself
I graduated from UW Bothell with a major in Accounting. I started off my career as an Accountant working at a wine company. It was a good experience seeing a small company grow rapidly. I then moved on to Financial Analyst position at Boeing which was the company I’ve always wanted to work for because many of my friends and family worked here. Working at this company for 2 years now, I realize it may not be company I want to work for right now which has cause me to look else where.
What can you bring to the company/job?
I’m willing to bring the effort and go the extra mile at work. Since my main goal is to become a more seasoned finance professional, I am willing to work extra if needed, ask many questions to learn the process and big picture of the company.
What are some typical decisions that you make and how do you make them?
A typical decisions I make at work is determining the correct chargeline I provide to people. Not giving the correct one can overstate or understate the organizations non-labor categories(conferences vs. Business meetings). The ways I figure out how to determine the correct chargeline is getting a description of what they plan on expensing(purpose of event, location, what is being bought). If the event is something I am not familiar with, I will refer to our overhead accounting manual.
Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills
I was doing a temporary project(on top of my normal SOW) for 3 months and had to learn a process from an employee leaving the company. It was difficult to get the big picture of the assignment and I was only going off the process documentation and previous month’s worksheets. The challenge was being able to reconcile numbers and I needed constant review from my manager to make sure the customer was getting the right information. I also had to deal with the customer who was very demanding. To deal with the situation, I organized meetings with my manager and customer and to give understanding and communicated effectively with everyone.
Describe a time you made a mistake and how did you handle it
Once, I sent a report to customers/leaders where the months weren’t updated or it was missing some data. After being told my reports weren’t accurate, I learned to review my reports more and also get it peer reviewed by my co workers before sending out.
Give me a specific example when you used good judgement and logic in problem solving
Forecast updates. Customer didn’t want to give me inputs so I updated the forecast based of their actuals YTD. I did an average of what they spent on each category and respread their underrun the future months. If they asked why their forecast was set a certain way, I’ll explain the logic behind it.
Describe a decision that you made that wasn’t popular and how you handled implementing it.
In a quarterly forecast update, Bus Ops wanted to increase their travel budget due. When I went to their staff meeting, I had to explain to them that they weren’t getting a budget increase due to the fact there were travel targets that SM had to meet. I explained to them that our team ran an exercise to reduce every org’s travel budget based of past actuals and forecast and this was supported by my Finance Director.
What do you do when your schedule is interrupted? Give an example.
When my schedule is interrupted, I will prioritize to get the most important thing done. When I was in the middle of the forecast update that had a deadline for inputs, one of my customers asked for an ad-hoc report. I told them the importance of my current tasks and assured that I can give them what they needed once I finished the forecast.
Tell a time you had a complex problem that you solved. GIve an example of a problem you faced and how you handled it.
One time on my monthly reports, there was a large variance to the forecast and the leader asked about it. I had to research what cause the variance but pulling reports off of Cognos. It turned out they were mischarges and I had to notify the employees of their mistake. I also had to submit an accounting change in a timely manner.
Give me a specific example when you used good judgement and logic in problem solving
Forecast updates. Customer didn’t want to give me inputs so I updated the forecast based of their actuals YTD. I did an average of what they spent on each category and respread their underrun the future months. If they asked why their forecast was set a certain way, I’ll explain the logic behind it.
What can you bring to the company/job?
I’m willing to bring the effort and go the extra mile at work. Since my main goal is to become a more seasoned finance professional, I am willing to work extra if needed, ask many questions to learn the process and big picture of the company.
What are some typical decisions that you make and how do you make them?
A typical decisions I make at work is determining the correct chargeline I provide to people. Not giving the correct one can overstate or understate the organizations non-labor categories(conferences vs. Business meetings). The ways I figure out how to determine the correct chargeline is getting a description of what they plan on expensing(purpose of event, location, what is being bought). If the event is something I am not familiar with, I will refer to our overhead accounting manual.
Greatest weakness
Introverted personality. It can show that I am not very assertive. However I do know when to raise my hand. I tend to analyze a situation and listen first before I speak.
Greatest Strength
I feel confident in being able to meet deadlines to meet customer needs. On a daily basis, I have to create unique chargelines(way of collecting cost from employees outside of SM who are supporting). The process of of creating one takes a lot of coordination with different people. Has to go through multiple sign offs. Many times, a chargeline is needed ASAP so many times I have to elevate the process by calling everyone.
