Over 100 Common senior finance and similar role interview questions.

Ever had a reverse interview? Been thrown under the bus? Like failure? What's your spirit animal?

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These are a sample of some questions I’ve been presented with over the years and some I have also used when interviewing. It’s worth understanding that clearly an interviewer or potential client can ask anything about your experience, previous jobs etc and obviously what you know about the role and company, industry so you need to be well prepared there e.g. what would a key metric or goal in this specific industry be? It’s also worth knowing that just answering the questions concisely may not be enough, ideally they want you to sell yourself on how you can add value, show character, sense of humor, personality and team fit as well as experience alignment etc.

The following are samples that seem to keep popping up (they may not all be the best, they just seem to keep being asked!). Also bear in mind that depending on the role and seniority etc they could well get extremely technical and very specific e.g. explain how you would post an intercompany company journal aka can you actually do debits and credits properly, or for sales how many calls do you make a day, what’s your close rate what % business did you grow how much new business did you win etc. This also gauges how you work under pressure and on your own two feet as well a understanding the key technical aspects of the role. You need to be very specific when describing a particular scenario and it really shows that you understand the task, have the expertise, took accountability, took action and got results.

1) Tell me what a good accountant/cfo/ customer service manager, sales rep etc. does, what does the job entail, core competencies and outcomes? This is quite a common and broad ranging question aimed to see what your thoughts on the role are (keep it concise). A follow up may be "What specific type are you?" (gatekeeper, tech wiz, visionary, organizer, motivator, problem solver, doer, over communicator etc.). Obviously, it would vary depending on whether this is SME or corporate etc. but you need a solid answer. This can be a bit tricky to answer as may catch people off guard and hard to pin point a few key tasks.

2) What are the key metrics this role should provide the business, understand and help drive. Name and explain up to 5? Again, can be tricky and is broad ranging but you should know at least 5 key metrics and be able to work with these, explain context and provide examples.

3) Give us an overview of your CV and current recent roles? What brings you to here or why do you want to move (if role requires relocation then be prepared to show considerable commitment).

4) How do you review results and provide key insights? What do you focus on?

5) Where do you see this role going for you, where do you see yourself in 5 years?

6) What value can you add this to role and company? Great opportunity for you to explain your fit and the value you bring.

7) Why should we hire you? This is a classic and often comes at the end.

8) Why are you drawn to this company and role?

9) Why did you leave your last employer? Have a concise answer not just “for a better opportunity & more cash”.

10) What could your last employer have done better, why? Why didn’t they?

11) What are you looking for in your next role?

12) What would your ex boss say about you?

13) What would your team mates, colleagues and family say about you?

14) What would you like to be remembered for most in a role?

15) What’s your leadership style?

16) Explain your 90 day plan for this role and why? Startup vs corporate etc?

17) What strategic level work have you been involved in directing, managing or helping to build? Have you worked with board CEO, investors, management team etc.

18) Do you have any concerns about this job or areas you can’t do?

19) How would you manage moving industries into this job? How will you overcome the challenges?

20) How would you deal with an under performing business unit.

21) How should we deal with competitors?

22) Describe a time you’ve made a mistake and what did you do about it?

23) Usually a few days before you’re presented with a sample set of data or accounts and asked to review and provide insights. Also provided with details around potential market or product expansion and asked to provide a detailed analysis and recommendations to the board. Alos, provide key concepts on what great and best in class function looks like, how you would build and run it etc. don’t forget stakeholders and business partnering!

24) How would you deal with an employee or colleague who is not performing?

25) How would you deal with an angry or furious customer?

26) What do you think is a good work culture?

27) How do you manage your time effectively?

28) How do you prioritize tasks and deadlines?

29) When/ how have you delegated tasks?

30) Have you ran the budget/forecasting process? What were the challenges?

31) When have you worked alongside sales, or operations and what was the outcome, how did you improve performance?

32) Describe a time you had to really think outside of the box?

33) Provide examples of working cross functionally with other departments?

34) Provide an example of when you’ve had to business partner what was the outcome?

35) What are challenges you’ve faced and how have your overcome them?

36) What projects have you been involved in? What were the key learnings?

37) What projects have you led and owned?

38) What do you look for in colleagues and also when you hire staff?

39) Have you had to discipline an employee, what happened?

40) How have you shaped culture?

41) When have you lived and demonstrated the company values?

42) How do you view working from home vs working face to face.

43) What is your biggest achievement?

44) Provide examples of cost cutting and efficiencies you have driven?

45) Tell me about when something didn’t go to plan or went wrong and how did you deal with it?

46) When have you influenced decision makers, senior staff c suite etc.?

47) Provide examples of when you have changed someone; s mind and directly influenced?

48) Provide an example when somebody completely disagreed with you?

49) Name a time you’ve found mistakes or problems and what did you do about it?

50) How do you respond when someone doesn’t agree with you?

51) How do you deal with stress?

52) How would you evaluate an investment proposal , what financial calculations would you use?

53) What are keys things you want to see in tight financial process?

54) How do you take feedback?

55) How have you approached working with extremely strong minded and overpowering characters e.g. bosses or Directors?

56) How do you deal with set backs or bad news?

57) Explain which IFRS etc. x,y etc. you use regularly.

58) Can you expand on your experience mainly in industry only or audit only and why you want to move into the commercial and leadership space? How will you adapt and what skills have you got? (Being able to navigate across different backgrounds and experiences).

59) What do you know about our business model and how it works? How do you understand it? What else do you need to learn about the role? How will you do that?

60) Explain in detail how you built a costing model, profit dashboard, cost to service cash flow model etc.

61) Explain how you build a 3 way model?

62) What are the most important pieces e.g. top 3-5 of a world class finance (or other) function?

63) What are your thoughts on AI?

64) What AI skills do you have?

65) How are you using AI in work and at home?

66) How can we use AI to save money, make money or improve our jobs?

67) How do you learn and develop professionally?

68) Provide example of processes you have changed or streamlined or automated?

69) What are recent books and podcasts have you read or listened to and what did you learn?

70) What’s recent course or CPD you have completed and what did you learn?

71) What are your future study plans?

72) How have you improved metrics like EBITDA, cash flow metrics etc.

73) Have you been involved in M&A or other fundraising?

74) Have you been involved in or what major transformation e.g. ERP implementation or restructuring projects have you worked on?

75) What are your thoughts on

76) Have you been involved in lean projects?

77) Describe a time you have been thrown a real curve ball or late night request and how have you handled it?

78) When have you had to work outside of your comfort zone?

79) What happened if your team mates called in sick and you had to help cover them or went on leave but you are also have your own deadlines?

80) What are some of your mantras?

81) Who trained you, how did you learn and what makes you qualified for this job?

82) What differences have you found between the learning, school university theory etc. and real life practice?

83) What habits do you not like e.g. “That’s not my job” or lateness etc.?

84) Do you stive for Perfection and what are your thoughts on it?

85) How would you rate your technical ability?

86) How do you adapt to working with people from different work cultures and backgrounds that could be very different?

87) What are your strengths and weaknesses?

88) What does being a good leader mean to you?

89) What’s something that surprised you about being a leader?

90) Name a good leader or mentor and what did they teach you? Always good to provide direct examples.

91) What do you enjoy about your role? What do you dislike?

92) What are your future goals and ambitions?

93) Why/how would you change a system or process e.g. map it out and look at benchmarking etc. ROI, investment vs pay back. Payback period etc.

94) What do you do outside of work?

95) Do you have any conflicts or other boards or companies you’re involved in? It’s surprising how many side hustles or other things people have going on (even other jobs etc. especially if more remote work they may try to run serval jobs so worth asking the question).

96) What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you motivated.

97) What’s keeps driving you forward?

98) What are some advantages or surprise learnings etc. of the job you are in or the type of industry you are in? E.g. develop leadership, HR or legal skills etc. outside of your core remit.

99) What questions have you got for us? Actually, we want you to ask all of the questions, like a reverse interview! This is a toughie! Make sure to add some great examples on top of questions.

100) Have you not received praise for the work you’ve done before, or has a boss stolen your thunder and taken credit for your success?

101) What are underrated and overrated skills associated with the job? What are the most important skills?

102) What has held your previous companies and teams back?

103) What great advice have you had and still use to this day?

104) When have you had a bad piece of advice or had to deal with a bad situation or “hospital pass”.

105) Have you been involved in negotiation or a serious standoff and how did you deal with it?

There seems to be 3 general layers to a formal interview; 1) Ice breakers, laying out the role and the company, some general questions, getting to know you a bit and finding out how well you know the role and the company. 2) Then it will ramp up in to more detailed questions around your fit both technically and culturally for the role, gauging your ability and asking you to provide specific examples, where they evaluate your fit and potential performance and compare you against other candidates and try to envision where you’d sit and add value to the team. It’s ideal to provide specific examples but if not you could provide a more theoretical answer, or state that you don’t have a specific answer (and add what you think should happen).

If they turn it into a reverse type of interview you can ask the questions you already have and take the opportunity to add why you would be a great fit and add value to the roles etc. 3) The final layer is more asking you specifically to sell yourself more directly "Why should we hire you?" , asking you to ask some more questions to show you thought about the job and gauge interest and perhaps some very informal questions to bring the interview back down towards closing and next steps. Sometimes they through in some silly questions to cool things off.

Asking your own questions back is usually where a lot of candidates struggle. Also, the interviewer may already have covered the questions off when they provided a full overview. You should ask about the growth potential of the role and the company, future learning opportunities etc which also shows commitment. Also ask what the tough parts of the role are, anything to be fixed or improved? Show your thinking ahead, that you know the role and the company, show that you would really value the opportunity to work there, it would be a great career move and you can add real value. Highlight alignment with the role and your skills. Convey how you can add real value. Ask what would an ideal candidate look like for them or even better ask “what will success look like in this role for you?”. If you’ve got multiple interviewers then make sure you look each in the eye don’t just focus on one particular person.

Here are some crazy questions I’ve heard of:-

1) Would you see yourself as a zoo animal or a circus animal?

2) We missed out budget by x amount again what are you going to do about it in this role? (Questions with no context that require some quick thinking).

3) On the back of this envelope calculate how many units we sold in x country last year and what we may expect to sell next year?

4) What are your opinions of the LIV golf league vs PGA?

5) Sell me this pen.

Feel free to share your questions!