HRinmotion Blog – Career advice from HR Pros

Below are a few job interview questions for the Internal Audit Manager position developed by our human resources team. The questions come from our experience working with and within Finance departments.

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Internal Audit Manager Job Interview Questions

In your experience, give us an example of a time when you were responsible for the development, implementation and management of advanced-level complex and high risk internal audit projects, and the evaluation and improvement of the effectiveness of risk management, control and government processes? How did you balance your day to day tasks with projects?

What do you do on a regular basis to ensure assets are adequately protected, and ensure significant financial and managerial and operative information is accurate, reliable and time?

Job titles releated to Internal Audit Manager

• controller
• director – financial services
• director of accounting
• finance director
• financial administrator
• manager, financial control
• manager, financial planning and analysis
• manager, internal audit services
• treasurer

Below are a few job interview questions for the Corporate Controller  position. The questions have been created by our HR Team who have worked closely with financial controllers and Finance related departments.

Corporate Controller, Financial Controller Jobs Canada

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Corporate Controller, Financial Controller Job Interview Questions

Describe your day to day activities as a Corporate Controller and how you manage the accounting operations including the review of journal entries, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable and statutory reporting? What process do you use to ensure accuracy?

What steps do you take to establish and monitor internal controls to ensure that accounting activities are in accordance with established legal regulatory and company policies and procedures?

As our Financial Controller you will be leading a team of direct reports and other financial professionals.  What is the largest group you have managed?

What tools and processes do you take to prepare, analyze and present monthly, quarterly and annual operating results for each department? How is your data collected? Describe the company you worked for and how many employees worked there?

Strategic thinking is critical to being a successful Corporate Controller.  When working on a project, describe a time when you provided strategic analysis as required to drive improved decision making. What was the situation? How did you come up with your resolutions?

A Financial Controller must be able to work well in a team setting.  Tell us a time when you worked well with external auditors, audit committee and Board of Directors. Also, describe a situation when it was difficult to build rapport with these groups?

The ability to communicate complex financial information and issues is very important as a Financial Controller.  What is your experience is preparing and presenting financial information for quarterly and annual reports? What were some of the complexities of the report? What was the largest group you have presented information to?

Job titles related to Corporate Controller

• controller
• director – financial services
• director of accounting
• finance director
• chartered accountant – CA
• financial controller
• financial administrator
• manager, financial control
• manager, financial planning and analysis
• manager, internal audit services
• treasurer

Financial auditors ensures that organizations comply with established accounting standards and procedures. Auditors also help companies ensure accuracy in financial papers. Below are job questions for Financial Auditor positions.

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Financial Auditor Job Interview Questions

Tell me about yourself.

As an auditor, how would your clients, colleagues, managers and direct reports describe you.

We have all had an experience where we did not get along with someone we had to work with. As an auditor for our company, you will be supervising other auditors or professionals in charge of accounting within client’s establishment. Tell me the most difficult client you have had to work with. What made that situation so tough? How did yo handle that situation?

Suppose you discovered a situation of potential fraud involving a member of upper management from your client. How would you handle this?

Give me an example when you identified a problem before anyone else when examining journal and ledger entries, bank statements, inventories, expenditures, tax returns and other accounting and financial records, etc. What did you do about this?

In this position, you will be required to lead your own auditing department. Tell me about a time when you had to manage a junior auditor who was having trouble meeting performance objectives. What did you do about this situation?

What educational and professional certifications related to accounting and auditing do you hold? i.e. CA, CMA, CGA, Institute of Internal Auditors, CA Associations, etc.

List 5 traits or skills required to be a successful auditor. Which one are you weakest in?

Suppose a colleague approached you with insider information. How would you handle this? What would you do?

This Auditing position requires you to local, regional, and national travel about 30% of the time. Are you able to meet this requirement?

What do you think your strengths are as an Auditor? How do you know this to be true?

Job Titles Related to Financial Auditors

accountant
certified general accountant (CGA)
certified management accountant (CMA)
chartered accountant (CA)
chief accountant
financial auditor
income tax expert
industrial accountant
internal auditor

If you have an upcoming  payroll job interview for an Payroll Clerk, here are a few questions that may be asked by the interviewer(s) below. These questions have been developed by our human resources team.

Payroll Clerk, Payroll Administrator jobs in Canada

Payroll Clerk  Payroll Administrator jobs in UK

Payroll Clerk Payroll Administrator jobs in USA

Depending on the industry and company, Payroll Clerk  may also be known as:

• Benefits Officer
• Pay and Benefits Administrator
• Pay Clerk
• Payroll Officer
• Pay Advisor
• Payroll Administrator
• Pay and Benefits Clerk
• Payroll Clerk
• Salary Administration Officer
• Payroll Accounting Clerk

Payroll Clerk  or Payroll Administrator Job Interview Questions


As a payroll administrator you will need to create payroll reports to finance and accounting departments.  Describe a complex report you have prepared by compiling summaries of earnings, taxes, deductions, leave, disability, and nontaxable wages. What made the report complex? What were some of the hurdles you had to overcome?

The knowledge of legislation such as employment standards, labour code, etc. is used by a payroll administrator everyday.  Describe your knowledge of relevant payroll legislation.

Sometimes in payroll, a payroll clerk must handle irate employees due to a payroll error.  Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an employee or contractor who was angry and even abusive to you.  How did you handle this situation?

How do you determine payroll liabilities such as calculating employee federal, state or provincial income and social security taxes and employer’s social security, unemployment, and workers compensation payments?

A payroll administrator must be able to thrive under pressure.  Due to the nature of the job, you will be required to meet deadlines within the payroll cycle.  How you manage job stress and pressures?

Adaptability is very important to be payroll administrator.  Sometimes in payroll, unplanned tasks come up that disrupt your schedule.  How you prioritize your time in such situations?

A successful payroll specialist must be able to solve problems.  In your day to day clerical duties, how do you resolve payroll discrepancies when collecting and analyzing information?

What were some of the challenges faced when maintaining payroll operations by following policies and procedures; reporting needed changes?

A payroll specialist will be privy to confidential salary and pay information.  How do you ensure and maintain employee confidentiality by protecting payroll operations?

Please tell us what your experience is with the following and how do you rate yourself on a scale from 1-5, 1 being weak and 5 being excellent:

-ADP Experience
-Lawson a plus
-Analyzing Information
-Data Entry Skills
-General Math and book keeping Skills
-Financial Software
-Reporting Skills

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So you have an interview for a Financial Analyst position.  Well, then you should read this post because below are job interview questions for a Financial Analyst job. The questions below are the same ones we used in working with high profile staffing companies for the position of Financial Analyst.

Depending on the specific job and company, Financial Analysts may also be called:

• chartered financial analyst
• financial analyst
• investment analyst
• money market analyst
• portfolio manager
• research associate, financial services

Financial Analyst Jobs in Canada
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Financial Analyst jobs in UK

5 Financial Analyst Job Interview Questions

What is your experience creating daily sales reports for a specific company? How did you go about creating the sales report?

Tell us about your experience with analysis of financial & management reporting actual and plan revenues, expenses, and balance sheet items during the month-end close period. This includes detailed variance analysis. How did you gather this information for a specific project?

Have you assisted with the quarterly forecasting and annual planning processes (e.g. updating revenue and expense models, input of forecasts and detailed plans by org unit into the financial systems, coordinating plan transfers, etc.) for a specific allocated project?

Tell us about specific profitability models used for forecasting, business casing and ad hoc analyses you have developed and maintained for a specific project?

What type of financial expertise have you provided to the Project Manager in support of expansion programs? What was the size and budget of the project?

How Did We Create These Questions and How Should You Answer?

The interview questions you see above, are created using the same methods we used as coporate HR professionals. For more information on how we create these questions and how to answer them see the post, “Soft Skills Sells In Interviews”

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We are always looking for new jobs to create interview questions for, so if you have a request let us know. If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe by email or RSS feed.

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If you are interviewing or hiring for an Accountant position, you may want to read this post. Below are some good job interview questions for an accounting job. The methods we used to develop these questions are the same ones we used as corporate HR in developing job interview questions for hiring managers. We have developed these questions by analyzing the core competencies or skills, job ad requirements and so forth.

Accountant Jobs in Canada
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5 Accountant Job Interview Questions

Describe a time when you faced a particularly demanding deadline (emergency, rush, etc) to prepare a financial statements and reports. How did you react? What was the result? What did you learn to handle the situation better?

When reconciling various balance sheet accounts to subsystems: Tell me about a time when you noticed a source of potential loss for a company or identified an undetected financial error before anyone else. What did you do about it?

How do you ensure that you do not forget the details and ensure accuracy when you prepare monthly journal entries, record transactions and so on?

Tell me about a time when you had to explain a complex accounting issue to someone with without an accounting background? How did you help your audience understand?

Tell me about some of the long- or short-term financial plans you’ve developed for your department, client, or employer?

Depending on the employer and industry, here are some titles related to Accountant:

More About These Questions

The accountant job interview questions in this post assess the essential soft skills for this particular job through its core functions. We focus on the soft skills because we have found that most candidates handle the questions designed to assess their technical proficiency very well only to stumble with the questions designed to assess their soft skills. For example, when we ask a programmer to explain what a certain set of code means or how best to handle a coding issue, most often their answer is a good one. Now when we ask the same candidate to “describe a time when you did not get along well with a co-worker and how you handled it” to assess their interpersonal skills, 9 times out of 10 they stumble. We see the same thing over and over again whether we are hiring for an accountant, teacher, and so on. Most candidates can handle questions designed to assess their technical competencies much much better than questions designed to assess their soft skills

Why does soft skills matter? Because 9 times out of 10 applicants are bypassed due to their soft skills. We hear this all the time when we debrief with the hiring manager to get their feedback on the applicant. Sometimes, the hiring managers will directly state that the applicant lacked the soft skills but more often it will be phrased as “no connection with the applicant”, or “didn’t get a good feel about the applicant” or “don’t think the applicant would fit in well” and so on.

In addition to focusing on the soft skills we have incorporated behavioral based interview questions. We focus on behavioral based interview questions because they are very prevalent in the HR industry. Behavioral questions focus on assessing past behavior by asking you to provide an example or describe a situation that has happened in the past and what you did. So because of the reasons stated and others beyond the scope of this post, you will likely be asked these questions in your next job interview.

How to Answer

Your response really depends on exactly the type of interview question asked. While interviewing skills as a hiring manager or job applicant can be quite an in depth topic and beyond the scope of this post, we have provided a quick lesson on how you can improve your interview skills. We have chosen to briefly cover the behavioral question because this is where we see most people struggle.

To ensure that you provide good answers consistently we advise that you follow a structured approach when responding to behavioral type questions. Two effective techniques to use are “STAR” (situation, task, action, result) and “PAR” (problem, action, result). These techniques are very similar to one another, so for illustrative purposes, we will discuss the STAR method.

To use the STAR technique, simply describe each element in your interview answer. So with the star technique, begin by describing the situation. Here you want to quickly give context to the interviewer (where, when, etc). Next clearly describe your task, that is what were you tasked to do in this situation. Now it is time to describe the steps or action you took to complete your task. Lastly, describe the results that you achieved. Sounds simple right? Well it is simple, but the secret is to practice responding following this structure. By following structure, you will ensure that you provide complete answers and do not omit vital pieces of information.

The Questions Are Also In Your Resume

Before we end this post, let us leave you with one more job interview tip. Remember that another good source of job interview questions is your resume. Hiring managers will ask you questions based on your resume. For some people it’s hard to recall what you did last week, let alone what you did at work a few years ago. So it pays to review your resume before you go to your job interview. So until our next post, remember that preparation is the key to success when it comes to job interviews.

For more see our online job interview and resume writing courses. So until our next post, we wish you much luck and success in your career search.

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If you would like to see job interview questions for other positions, just let us know by leaving a comment here or contact us directly by email. If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe by email or RSS feed.

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