Six Common Questions
Posted by Administrator on Aug 10, 2009
One of the greatest confidence builders when going for a job interview is to be prepared for the questions to be asked. Whether you are applying as an accountant, programmer or secretary, there are some general questions that are commonly asked during the interview:
1. What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses?
2. What is the reason for leaving your previous work?
3. Can you describe a previous job condition where you…? (a situational)
4. What do you consider an ideal work environment?
5. How do you deal with mistakes?
6. What do you consider as your best achievement?
Illegal Questions
Posted by Administrator on Jul 10, 2009
The interview process will already be full of stress without you trying to promote your skills and project your enthusiasm while desperately keeping your concentration. Adding to the stress are illegal questions which can suddenly sneak up during the course of the interview. Knowing how to identify what types of questions are illegal is an effective way of diffusing the tension immediately.
Majority of interviewers are unaware that they are posing illegal questions and will readily withdraw them once tactfully pointed out to them. Bottom line is to learn how to deal with the situation in a diplomatic manner so as not to agitate the interviewer.
Situational Questions
Posted by Administrator on Jan 30, 2009
Your interviewer would more or less be sure to present you with situational questions that will check for your accounting problem solving skills. If you happen to have little or no experience in a presented question, say so and the interviewer may present you with a different question. If not, answer best you can for if you know your job, as we said, accounting is a very technical field which typically has the same principles that vary with their application. Questions regarding your job experience would also bring out your weak points so give all answers as accurate as possible. Never and we do mean never guess, for the one interviewing you may also be an accountant. For procedural questions, they would challenge your mastery of your skills in preparing spreadsheets, balance sheets and other information sets where you base your analysis of the cash flow presented. Your results may be challenged for real on-paper testing which they can choose to give you to see if you have the necessary skills for information presentation and analysis.
The Accountants Job
Posted by Administrator on Aug 18, 2008
Image source: www.targetedsearch.net
In many public firms, accountants become increasingly responsible for management of other accountants and acquiring new accounts instead of pure accounting work.
Since all of these tasks require a high degree of teamwork, leadership and charisma, the accounting job interview will seek to uncover these attributes in addition to technical accounting skills. For that reason, someone preparing for an accounting job interview needs to spend a little bit of time working on their response to questions outside the realm of accounting. Their first step should be to do some research and discover exactly what the accounting job they are pursuing will consist of, in the short and long term. This research may be done with a combination of published and personal investigation and should uncover four elements; the daily duties, the desired results of the job, the personal characteristics the company desires; and the future career paths available to the position.
Accounting Job Interview Sample Questions (Part 3 of 3)
Posted by editor on May 30, 2008
by Chubs
General Ledger
1. Kindly share your experience with general ledger.
2. Explain the seven basic categories used in general ledger.
Payroll
1. Can you tell us about your experience in payroll?
2. Using the Internal Revenue Service rules, what criteria differentiate a consultant from an employee?
3. Have you experienced any disputes in handling payroll? How were you able to manage this conflict?
4. Were there any particular methods you used to ensure fewer discrepancies in managing payrolls?
Supervisory
1. Share any supervisory experience you had in an accounting department.
2. Did you ever use cost-cutting measures to resolve any problem within your department?
3. How were you able to monitor the performance of your department?
Accounting Job Interview Sample Questions (Part 2 of 3)
Posted by editor on May 26, 2008
by Chubs
Cashier
1. Can you tell something about your experience as a cashier?
2. Have you encountered any disputes during this experience? If you did, how were you able to resolve the issue?
Cost Accounting
1. Can you share with us your experience in cost accounting?
2. What are the methods you used to allocate support costs? How were they effective as methods?
3. Explain the purpose of a chargeback and name the proponents of an effective chargeback.
4. Have you experienced implementing or administering a chargeback system?
5. Define fixed costs, variable costs, and marginal costs.
Fixed Assets
1. Kindly describe any experience you had in fixed assets accounting.
2. What is depreciation? What are the ways used to calculate depreciation?
Accounting Job Interview Sample Questions (Part 1 of 3)
Posted by editor on May 23, 2008
by Chubs
It is always better if you have an idea of what questions will an interviewer typically ask an applicant for an accounting job. Here are some basic accounting job interview questions which are categorized according to specific fields:
Accounts Payable
1. Can you tell something about your experience in accounts payable?
2. How many invoices have you managed on a weekly/monthly basis?
3. What are the necessary steps you would consider before approving an invoice for payment?
4. What kind of information do you require before you approve an invoice for payment?
5. Have you experienced handling any invoice discrepancy? If so, how did you resolve the discrepancy?
6. Have you experienced getting involved in an invoice dispute? How did you manage the issue?
7. Can you tell the difference between billable and non-billable expenses?
Accounts Receivable
1. Can you share your experience in collections?
2. Let’s say you’re in a situation wherein you were asked to prepare a bill for services, what information do you think should be indicated in the bill?
Audit
1. Share your experience in performing audits.