Finance Associate Interview Questions

Finance associates utilise a wide variety of basic financial functions to provide clients with advice and guidance on strategic planning for long-term financial decisions. Companies and individuals look to them for financial expertise when deciding on a broad range of financial matters, including investments and annual budgets.

25,984 Finance Associate interview questions shared by candidates

Top Finance Associate Interview Questions & How to Answer

Here are the top three finance associate interview questions and tips on how to answer them:

Question No. 1: Can you explain the steps needed in the tax preparation process?

How to answer: This open-ended question is designed to test your fundamental knowledge base of the financial skills involved in the process of preparing taxes and tax calculations as well as your ability to contribute to their team. You should work through a sample tax preparation scenario with a client from start to finish, highlighting areas in which your knowledge base is exceptional.

Question No. 2: Have you ever guided staff or a colleague with regard to financial regulation compliance? If so, what was your process? If not, how would you approach this?

How to answer: This open-ended question demonstrates your knowledge of standards, industry regulations and fiscal policies. It also provides proof of your ability to promote best practices when it comes to financial regulation compliance. Provide an example of working with a team using this process. If you have not guided anyone through this process, provide best practice steps and how you would work through them with a team.

Question No. 3: What is your preferred financial software? Why?

How to answer: This open-ended question is designed to showcase your knowledge of available financial software and your ability to evaluate the proficiency and applicability of such software. If possible, refer to several financial software options in which you are proficient so you can further demonstrate your breadth of knowledge in this area. Share how you have used, or would use, these software options.

Top Interview Questions

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MAERSK
Senior Executive - Finance & Accounts was asked...30 June 2012

What would you do, if you are in a situation where in you are requesting for a certain input from a very senior person in the management and he is not replying back to your emails, phone calls etc. And this input is crucial for you to meet a deadline.

8 Answers

to know the right way

Convey to the right chanel

I would start with emails, if that does not work, I would personally try to catch the supervisor and make sure I explain the situation or possible get the right advice I seek. Less

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Morgan Stanley

At a party everyone shakes hands, 66 hand shakes occur, how many people are at the party?

9 Answers

12

You can suppose there are n people in the room and think of them in a row. The first one has to shake hands with (n-1) people (because he doesn't have to shake hands with himself). The second one has already shaken hands with the first one, so he has (n-2) shakes remaining... and so on. So you have to sum: (n-1)+(n-2)+(n-3)+...+1= (n/2)*(n-1) Then you have to solve (n/2)*(n-1)=66 and you get n=12. Less

n(n-1)/2=66 so n=12

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Google

Pretend 1% of the population has a disease. You have a test that determines if you have that disease, but it's only 80% accurate and 20% of the time you get a false positive, how likely is it you have the disease.

8 Answers

You don't need the test. The answer is given... 1% of the population has the disease... Answer: 1% Less

1%. The first sentence gives you all the info you need.

1% chance if using global population. Chances would decrease or increase depending on certain variable or demographic factors so I would say you need more data to give a specific answer. Things like age , gender , race , need to be taken into consideration if you are a 33 year old male and the subject disease is ovarial cancer then you have 0 percent chance . If you are a 40 year old nun and the disease is The clap you have less probably of being infected than say a 26 year old prostitute .. Less

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Siemens

Why Siemens? Tell me about yourself

7 Answers

Out of my over 30 years in Sales I have lead the most successful teams even through 2008 to 2012 which were very rough and tough times here in the states. My team remanded ever dedicated and we came up with creative ideas to make it through that recession. Less

I have been in Sales and Sales development for over 30 years. I owned my own company for the first 12 years and we ranked number one more than once in our franchise history . I have strong team building skills and motivational skills as a leader. I have been top in my profession for almost all of those years. Less

I would love to hear more about your opportunities. Thank you for your consideration Less

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Management Sciences for Health

Where will you be in five years’ time?

6 Answers

Working for the company

In the next few years as a human resources practitioner, I am look forward to deepening my skills and taking my knowledge base to the next level so I can contribute even more to the growth of the organization. Less

In the next few years as a human resources practitioner, I am look forward to deepening my skills and taking my knowledge base to the next level so I can contribute even more to the growth of the organization. Less

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Amazon

what product should we choose to carry if we only have one cube foot storage left in our warehouse?

6 Answers

Gift cards

Whatever carries the highest unit contribution margin. Need a decisioning metric which considers top line revenue along with variable costs. Less

Digital media.

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Citi

You have a Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and a Cash Flow statement. If you could choose two out of the three statements, which two would you choose and why?

6 Answers

You can make the SCF from BS and IS

This is a straight accounting question. You can make Cash Flow from Balance Sheet and Income Statement, so BS and IS is the answer! Less

the balance sheet is showed all assets of companies and income statement is showed net profit and loss of companies and statement of cash flow is showed the movement of cash flow . Less

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Sidra Medicine

Why do you want to work at sidra

5 Answers

I am biomedical engineering and i need a job so i can hel u in your company and i need to improve my self Less

Carrier growth and development my skills in advance equipment

I am a Family Nurse Practitioner, like work abroad had working experience at middle East , fluent in Arabic Less

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Morgan Stanley

There are two stocks with the same expected value, with variance 0.3 and 0.2 and correlation 0.5. What proportion of each stock do you invest in to yield a minimum risk portfolio?

5 Answers

17/44 of the stock with variance of .3 and 27/44 from the stock with variance of .2 Less

Above answers used variance in portfolio variance equation, rather than std. Answer is .386 for security with var .3, and .613 for security with var .2 Less

Covariance = 0.3 * 0.2 * 0.5 = 0.03 Cov Matrix = c = [0.3 0.03; 0.03 0.2] Inv Cov Matrix = c_inv = [2000/591 -100/197; -100/197 1000/197] Answer = (c_inv * [1; 1])/([1 1] * c_inv * [1; 1]) = [17/44; 27/44] Less

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Genpact

What is Reconciliation?

4 Answers

Reconciliation is the process of comparing two accounts to make sure they are ok. Less

Two sets of records are in agreement

To find difference in between two accounts

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