Finance Interview Questions & Answers

Why do you want to work in a controversial industry like this ?

The interview was by telephone with one of their recruitment team and lasted about 30 minutes. We talked initially about why I had applied for the role, what I knew about the company and why I was particularly interested in finance at the Co-operative Bank.
The rest of the interview was to test for competencies in the following areas: leading and supervising, relating and networking, coping with pressures and setbacks, and overall ability to communicate. In each of the areas, I had to give specific examples from my work, university or extra-curricular activities that showed my ability in that area.

What was it, in particular, that I did to prove that my boss should give me extra responsibility at work.

Make sure you are well prepared for your competency questions and be able to get across your passion for finance and have a clear rationale for why you are applying.
Do your research on the company - it's always good to be able to tie one of their company beliefs with something you are also interested in.

Can't help with this one - I don't know whether I've reached the assessment centre or not yet.

First meeting with the MD an the office manager involved a brief introduction about myself and from the management of the company and the role. I was asked to go through my CV and pick out highlights from it.
Then a number of competencies were tested such as time management, building relationships and strengths and weaknesses.

What would you say to a client to convince them to choose us?

Prepare and research the company, also understand some basics of the real estate market. Understand that the role requires some time to understand and you will need to learn a lot during the initial time period .

The second interview involved a personality test and a logical reasoning test and a chance to ask questions as well as a short on the spot scenario question.

The first interview will last approximately 45 minutes and will be by a manager from your line of service (or occasionally someone from HR). It is a competency-based interview. You will be asked a number of questions, which will profile your experience against the key competencies described above. Ideally, you should also aim to display the following attributes:
1. Commitment to teamwork.
2. Ability and desire to lead and inspire.
3. Respectability and responsibility - are you how the company would like to be perceived by clients.
4. Ethical and truthful - are you trustworthy and can you demonstrate your integrity.

You will participate in 4 or 5 activities during your Assessment Centre: a client meeting, a manager meeting, a Virtual Office Exercise, an Analysis Exercise, and in some cases, a final interview.

Remember, the other candidates present at your Assessment Centre may not necessarily be applying for the same service lines as you, so there is no need to be overly aggressive or competitive. It will probably be frowned upon by the KMPG team. Following your Assessment Centre, you will be given an opportunity to assess your own performance on the exercises. Use this opportunity to explain your actions and recommendations.

My final interview was a relaxed interview with a partner which took an hour. We covered some basic competency questions, two situational judgements, and then an informal chat about how auditing is evolving.

In the mock meeting with client. 'How will you improve the service provided by your company?'

In the mock meeting with manager. 'What will you do to take more responsibility?'

Top Tips
Phone interview
-make sure you know alot about the proffesional service industry
-make sure you know alot about kpmg
-make sure you know alot about their competitors, and kpmg' competitive advanatage
- make sure you know alot about the service line that you are applying to
-make sure you read the 9 company competencies listed on their website. This is what you will be assessed against.
-make sure you have a range of examples where you have shown the transferable skills that would be useful for the job.

Assessment Center
-make sure you work quickly and do not waste time reading every ounce of detail
-make sure you spelling and grammar is correct. They are looking for a professional graduate.
-look smart, this will make a good impression in the mock meetings.
-be confident
-talk to the other graduates at the lunch break

Partner Interview
-be yourself
-they are trying to see what you are really like/ are you a good fit
-enjoy it, it's very relaxed and they are pitching kpmg to you, just as much as they are assessing you.

During the AC, you will complete an analysis exercise, which takes an hour, digesting about 10 pages of information and then writing a report on the findings. Then you'll will take an e-tray exercise, also an hour long. This requires answering e-mails, voice-mails, video calls all within the allotted time. Finally you will have two mock meetings, one with a potential client, building a relationship, and one with your manager, assessing your individual performance.

This was a three stage interview with no assessment centre component. I was asked competency based questions, however the interviewing was very tough. It was difficult as they would ask questions as to why I had not been working for three months (and why I deemed a break after university as necessary). Talking them through my CV was the most vital component of the interview with the addition of a few questions regarding the role.

Why has it taken this long for you to find work?
Why did you take a three month break and deem it necessary?

Be yourself as I thought it would be a negative for this role, but got me a job offer. This company looks for honest individuals regardless of there faults. Obviously you have to have potential and I was told the fundamental trait they look for is "to add something to their team, not take away from it". This may sound simple, however being a typical salesman type may not work, you need to show character of your own.

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One of the interviews was in a room with two other people. One person was from HR and the other was from management. It was a competency based interview where they started off asking me to talk through my CV. They then asked questions about my job, what I do in my spare time and why they think I am suited to the role. They also asked why they should give me the role and what it was about the company that I liked so much. There were generic questions as well about my notice period and availability and if I had any questions.

I think the most difficult question was actually the one where they asked why should we give you the job? It was a basic question but I was just unprepared. Other questions were like describe a time where you had to overcome failure.

I think others should prepare for competency questions properly but the other things are just an assessment of your personality. It was hard to prepare for the interview so I would say just relax and see what happens.

I had to do a group scenario where we had a plane crash and had to decide what items we could carry. We were observed by around 12 people from HR and management. Another task was to prepare for a presentation where we were split into groups and some prepared when others went off to do the presentation or their interview. A final task was another group one where we had to analyse data and put it into a table.

My first interview was on the phone with the recruiter, as a pre-selection process to access the next step. The questions were general and it also involved some questions on particular situations and how I would handle them. The best thing was to get the recruiter's feedback on my answers at the end of the telephone interview.
However, I had the feeling that they already know they would process me to the second stage.

Do you have weaknesses? That question is common, but I don't think this is really useful..

When you are interviewed, be sure to want the role and to work in the company. Don't rush into it, don't apply for position you are unsure about.
Take into consideration the working hours, the location and write some reviews about the company if you can find some online. Don't base your opinion on it, but it gives a general idea.
For an interview, look excited about the position, show enthusiasm and energy. Be clear and sounds sure of what you say, and every time you say something about your skills, back it up with examples.

I didn't go to the assessment centre, because although I was told I had the right set of skills, I had no background in Finance. The salary was great, but I wasn't sure about the role in itself.

- Online Tests straight after you submit your application
- If your application is successful you're invited to a Phone Interview
- If you're successful after the phone interview invited to an Assessment Centre

Phone Interview:
- Mainly standard competency based questions. Really useful to read up on the FMCG industry, factors affecting it, what the big issues are at the moment, why do you want to do that job, what makes you a good manager, why would you be good for this programme, what makes you stand out, why finance ect. Really read up on the competition and what other competitors are doing, who they are and really why Unilever stands out from the rest. Also good to know lots of their products

"Why do you want to do finance and the CIMA rather than investment banking or consulting?"- Difficult as you needed evidence on how you decided those careers weren't for you. Just google competency questions to give you a better idea and make sure that you have to mind experiences that show off each competency. Also don't necessarily memorise your answers word for word as you can come off as rigid and they can tell you're reading from a script.

They can tell who wants the job and who is genuinely interested in the industry as it really shows on the commercial questions during the interview. Also they only take on a small amount of graduates each year so competition is extremely high. Plus they send their interns to the assessment centre with other applicants so they ultimately have the upper hand as they have been through the same process before, sometimes the same case studies, know a lot more about the company. Don't let them try and intimidate you or put you off with how confident they are about getting the job- they don't always.

Assessment centre in their offices.
- Usually roughly 6 per group but could be 4 or 8 depending on how many can attend.
day consists of:
- Group Task: standard group task. You're giving a point or company that you have to support for the task but you can change your point of view (they explain everything extremely well). Get your point across without dominating, give everyone a chance to speak, don't speak over people, don't stick to your point if everyone else thinks differently as it doesn't move the task along, don't be aggressive or shout.

- Case study: you do this on your own by yourself and there's nothing you can do to prepare for this as you'll be tested on how well you can read, analyse, write down, assess and draw conclusions from a vast piece of data which changes due to what function you've applied for. You may then have to present this info to someone else, just pick out the key points. Its easy to lose time reading the entire document.

- One on One Interview: this is the easiest part of the day and is a one on one interview with a senior manager or member of the first. This is just like the phone interview, and although they advise against it you really can use the same answers if you have to.

Whole day lasts around 8-9 hours with lunch and usually contact you the next day as to the result. I don't think they have an exact quota of how many to put through each assessment centre, but to be honest due to the small numbers they hire I think only 1 or 2 people get through on average per assessment.

In my interview I spoke for 45 minutes on the phone to a lady from the HR department. They asked me three questions: Why RBS, Why the division, and Tell me about a time you worked in a team. They also asked me to rate where I stood on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 always doing what I believe to me the right thing, and 10 not doing so. They also asked me to give an example of when I had displayed doing the right thing in accordance with my chosen rating.

When have you stood up for what you believed in despite the circumstances.

Make sure that you stay calm and enjoy the AC because you have to be able to convince other people that you can stay calm under pressure. The interviews will quiz you but do not be put off, rather take the challenge and answer the question in the best way you can. Also make sure that you take food with you because sometimes it can be a very long wait.

In the AC we were first given a group exercise where we debated the pros and cons of implementing several initiatives. We had to chose 3 that we would go forward with. We then had to give a presentation to the people in the division (individually), on why we chose the initiatives and how we thought the group discussion went. We also had one competency interview with someone from the division. This asked us a lot about the issues surrounding RBS and the division to which we had applied. We were given situations where we had to state what we would do in them.