Preparing for an interview for a Financial Controller position? Stick
around because in this video I'm going to tell you the types of questions you're
going to be asked and how to answer them
Hi I'm Jeri Walker with your Best Designed Career. I'm a CPA with more than
25 years of experience in the accounting and finance field I've interviewed hired
trained and mentored accounting professionals at all levels and now I'm
here to help you with your accounting and finance career so consider
subscribing and be sure to click on the bell notification so you don't miss out
when I post a new video let's talk about this controller interview you have
coming up now if you have an interview for a controller position most likely
you'll be meeting with the CFO VP of Finance or someone else at that level of
management now what I always tell my clients is as you're preparing for a job
interview it's important for you to put some thought into what your prospective
manager needs from you now you can study the company memorize elevator pitches
prepare answers for potential questions and you should do all these things but
if you don't speak to the needs of your future boss and how you will make their
life easier you're not going to leave a lasting impression with them so just
real quick let's talk about what they need from you and what they're looking
for in their ideal candidate so some of the main responsibilities of a
controller are to manage and lead the accounting team to ensure accurate and
timely completion of the monthly financial statements to improve
processes and increase efficiencies in their team to meet reporting deadlines
to design and maintain internal controls and to analyze financial statements and
metrics to identify trends for budget and forecasting purposes
now there are clearly more responsibilities but these are some of
the primary responsibilities that the hiring manager will assign you so as you
answer each of their interview questions be sure that your answer demonstrates
how you can perform these duties and how you will make their life easier and you
can do this even if you don't have direct experience in these duties in
this video I'm not going to go over the generic questions like tell me about
yourself or what are your weaknesses if you want
to get my guide on how to answer these and other common interview questions I
have a link for that below in the description so be sure to grab that
after you watch this video now what I want to do in this video is give you the
framework on how to answer some controler specific interview questions
and remember always keep in mind that your goal with every single one of your
answers is to confirm to them how you will be able to solve the problems so
let me give you a few examples of how this works now one question that's often
asked is how do you prioritize your work flow to meet multiple or conflicting
deadlines there's always a deadline right month inclosed board meetings tax
and audit deadlines budget preparation there's always the next deadline coming
around the corner for us now your manager needs to know that they can
count on you to meet your deadlines so they can meet theirs so talk about how
you've managed your deadlines in the past you can tell a story about a
challenge that came up and how you dealt with it so your deadlines were still met
if you've done things like improved processes or reassigned duties within
the department that has shaved time off of your monthly closed schedule talk
about that this way what you're doing is you're addressing the deadline concerns
of the manager and you're also demonstrating how you can manage your
team and improve processes which are additional skills your prospective
manager once their controller to have now another question you may be asked is
what accounting software programs have you used
okay so you've used what you've used if you've only used say Dynamics GP and
sage in tact and this company uses NetSuite don't panic
for the most part accounting software is very similar what you want to express is
that you're willing and able to learn their platform and to a great degree
self teach because most likely your new boss is not going to have time to train
you on software they need you to come in and go with it you can answer this
question with something like I have not yet used that suite but I was able to
learn Dynamics GP quite easily and I'm sure learning NetSuite won't be a
problem you know most accounting software is
basically the same and between product tutorials YouTube videos and Google I
know I can learn how to use it so by answering this way well your basic
answer is no I haven't used it you have framed your response so that there isn't
this barrier for you to become the ideal candidate for this controller position
you're not always going to have the exact experience needed for any
particular position but there are always ways that you can frame your answer to
demonstrate your ability to learn answer honestly and immediately give examples
of how you've learned new concepts and brought yourself up to speed in other
areas in your past now another question that you make it is tell me about your
experience with establishing internal financial controls you know that
internal controls are extremely important in accounting and if you are
interviewing for a controller position you've been exposed to internal controls
now if you haven't technically established them that's not a
deal-breaker but don't just say no I haven't what you want to do is answer
this question and by discussing how you've executed internal controls in the
past and be sure to incorporate your
understanding of the importance of internal controls maybe when you are a
staff accountant you were reconciling a bank account and discovered that there
was a duplicate payment on the same invoice which then led to the control of
stamping paid on all paid invoices or have you ever worked for a small company
that left blank checks or even worse signed blank checks in an unlocked
drawer and you brought that to the owners attention that maybe this isn't
the best practice for accounting I've actually had that happen multiple times
in my career so you probably have actually established internal controls
without even realizing it so just tell your story now another question you
might get is how do you ensure the accuracy of the financial statements I
hope you get this question because this question is going to give you a whole
bunch of opportunity to address multiple skill sets
now you could answer by saying well I do a full review of the financials but I
want you to think a little deeper and consider what are all of the ways that
you can ensure accuracy so talk about keeping your staff properly trained and
you mentor them so that they find errors before the financials even get to you
this speaks to your ability to lead and manage your team talk about how you've
streamlined processes which gives the preliminaries in your hand sooner to
give you more time to review this addresses your ability to improve
efficiencies in the department or you can talk about the variance analysis
that you do to look for anomalies in month-over-month or actual versus budget
numbers this is going to speak to your analytical skills so do you see how
these answers provide so much more value than just saying something like well I
do a full review of the financials now obviously I can't go over every possible
question that you will encounter in your controller interview in this video and
honestly that wouldn't help you because you can't memorize
every single answer anyway but you don't need to all you need to do is never
forget the needs of your hiring manager and be sure you address their concerns
as you answer each question you're asked and even if you don't have the direct
experience work to bridge the question and your answer to areas where you have
the experience and addressed similar challenges and how you've solved similar
problems that's really all you can do and honestly that's enough I hope this
video was helpful to you if you want to know more about me and the services i
provide to my clients you can find me on linkedin or you can visit my website at
yourbestdesignedcareer.com. Llinks for both of those are right below and if you want
to learn more things that you should be doing in your accounting career or job
search consider subscribing and click on the bell notification so you don't miss
a thing. Thanks for watching I'll see you next time