The Interview See my earlier advice for how to dress. Bring resumes on resume paper, show up 10-15 minutes early (there will usually be a check in place where you can review your resume and what you re expected to be asked). If you haven t been to the place of the interviews before (if it isn t on campus for some reason), allot extra time for traffic/wrecks/tornadoes/etc. First round interviews are generally one-on-one with either a recruiter or a manager. Depending on the person and the time slot, you could get someone who grills you with behavioral questions or someone who wants to discuss the campus, college football, or their good old days back in school. Hopefully for your sake it's the latter, not the former. In many cases the representative will have printed copies of your resume, along with all the other candidates they re interviewing that day. I think it would be wise to say something like I m sure you have a copy my resume but just in case I brought an extra copy. This way, you can hand them your resume on resume paper, so they know you mean business. Now we get into the interview questions and how to answer them. I have prepared a list of the most common interview questions, and what the best response is. Many of these are behavioral questions and are based on your experiences, so there is no way to adequately tailor a guide to these questions. My intent is to provide enough of an explanation and example of what a good response is to help you develop your answers.
Keep in mind that if you practice your answers ahead of time, get asked the question, and then deliver your answer in a rehearsed way, it will show. When you re asked the questions, you should speak like you re recalling the experience, not like you wrote down the answer yesterday. The purpose is instead to have a thought out, developed answer to avoid having to think on your feet, accidentally contradicting yourself, having trouble coming up with an answer, or saying something stupid. This should be a guide for how to develop your answers. This is also a great way to catalog your experiences in the event that a question arises that isn t contained in this guide. If you are reflecting on your past experiences and you ve already put them into writing, it will be much easier to discuss them. I made this mistake a few times when asked a question: I either gave an answer that wasn t complete or didn t even answer the question. Later, I thought to myself Man, I totally forgot about that time... I missed providing an awesome response. One of the most important things to keep in mind with these behavioral interview questions is that it isn t so much what you say, but how you say it. Specifically, how do you present yourself in a stressful environment such as an interview? Do you present as someone whom is personable? The most common interview questions (those with an * are extremely common): 1) Walk me through your resume* or 2) Tell me a little about yourself/your background
Prepare for this question by going through your resume and looking at the items that you have identified as achievements or responsibilities. Try to think of specific examples of each. This is an ideal chance to provide the interviewer with an overview of your resume from your viewpoint. I m a senior accounting major at XYZ. I will be graduating in the Spring of 2014 and currently hold a 3.5 GPA. I ve been involved in on campus activities as treasurer of my fraternity/sorority. I m also on a committee within Beta Alpha Psi, and volunteer at XYZ. Two summers ago I had the opportunity to work as a camp counselor at XYZ and last summer I worked as an accounting intern at XYZ. As a camp counsellor, I was able to (list 2 or 3 key areas) and in my accounting internship I (list 3 things). Make sure to spend more time discussing things that are relevant (like accounting internships). This is good time to jump into where you want to go from here: Since I m graduating from XYZ next Spring, I plan to enroll in the Masters in Accounting at XYZ to fulfill the CPA exam requirements. My plan is to intern in audit/tax next summer so I can work full time after my graduation in Spring of 2015. I ve said this before as a art of this guide that it is important that the interviewer knows your graduation schedule, your plan to meet the CPA requirements if you aren t doing grad school, and whether you are targeting audit or tax. I know some of you are hesitant to choose one because it is a big choice, but I think it is better to choose one and commit to it rather than saying you aren t sure. For internships it is less important as if you choose one and don t like it, you can likely switch. If you re going for full time but can t choose, it makes things a little more difficult.
3) Why KPMG/Deloitte/PwC/E&Y? * This question is really B.S. as there isn t really that much of an overall difference between the Big 4. What is more important is the office itself, and its own culture. Regardless of this fact, it is still a popular question. There are a few good ways you can answer this, and you can use all of them. Discuss how you are interested in a Big 4 firm vs. smaller firms for the reasons below (applicable to all of the Big 4): Your firm consistently tops the list in BusinessWeek s best places to launch a career The opportunity to work with high profile clients and key executives at a really early point in my career There is a learning culture where questions are encouraged and regular feedback provided (which is very true, I ve found) You are constantly being challenged to perform at your highest and you truly learn something every day If you re interviewing with smaller firms, you can discuss why you re interested in smaller firms by saying that: Working on smaller audits provides a big picture of the audit vs. working with a large public client and only seeing one piece of an audit (cash, PPE, etc.). This provides a better sense of the audit methodology and how the process works.
A second way to answer is to talk about the culture if you have met someone from the office. If you collected cards from meet the firms, or wherever, remember the representatives names and the topics you discussed. If you ve visited the office on a prior occasion for a recruiting event or something, this is also helpful. Discuss how you believe you would mesh well with the office environment. When talking with Mellissa H and Jason D at meet the firms, I felt very welcome and was invited into the discussion. Not all the firms were this friendly, and if they are an appropriate indication of the office culture, then I think I would enjoy the atmosphere your office provides. or When I attended the XYZ office summer event, I was really pleased with how pleasant and inviting everyone was. I could tell from the interactions between the employees that they enjoyed each other s company outside of the work setting, and that is something I am looking for. I ve heard that office culture is very important because you can spend a lot of time together in an audit room (or work together in tax) and you definitely want to be around people you feel comfortable with. Lastly, if you want to provide a specific answer to the question of why XYZ, discuss the clients that the local office you are interviewing with has. If they audit a bank in the area and you re interested in financial services, discuss how the office lines up with your interests.
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