Finance Interview Questions & Answers

- Online Tests straight after you submit your application
- If your application is successful you're invited to a Phone Interview
- If you're successful after the phone interview invited to an Assessment Centre

Phone Interview:
- Mainly standard competency based questions. Really useful to read up on the FMCG industry, factors affecting it, what the big issues are at the moment, why do you want to do that job, what makes you a good manager, why would you be good for this programme, what makes you stand out, why finance ect. Really read up on the competition and what other competitors are doing, who they are and really why Unilever stands out from the rest. Also good to know lots of their products

"Why do you want to do finance and the CIMA rather than investment banking or consulting?"- Difficult as you needed evidence on how you decided those careers weren't for you. Just google competency questions to give you a better idea and make sure that you have to mind experiences that show off each competency. Also don't necessarily memorise your answers word for word as you can come off as rigid and they can tell you're reading from a script.

They can tell who wants the job and who is genuinely interested in the industry as it really shows on the commercial questions during the interview. Also they only take on a small amount of graduates each year so competition is extremely high. Plus they send their interns to the assessment centre with other applicants so they ultimately have the upper hand as they have been through the same process before, sometimes the same case studies, know a lot more about the company. Don't let them try and intimidate you or put you off with how confident they are about getting the job- they don't always.

Assessment centre in their offices.
- Usually roughly 6 per group but could be 4 or 8 depending on how many can attend.
day consists of:
- Group Task: standard group task. You're giving a point or company that you have to support for the task but you can change your point of view (they explain everything extremely well). Get your point across without dominating, give everyone a chance to speak, don't speak over people, don't stick to your point if everyone else thinks differently as it doesn't move the task along, don't be aggressive or shout.

- Case study: you do this on your own by yourself and there's nothing you can do to prepare for this as you'll be tested on how well you can read, analyse, write down, assess and draw conclusions from a vast piece of data which changes due to what function you've applied for. You may then have to present this info to someone else, just pick out the key points. Its easy to lose time reading the entire document.

- One on One Interview: this is the easiest part of the day and is a one on one interview with a senior manager or member of the first. This is just like the phone interview, and although they advise against it you really can use the same answers if you have to.

Whole day lasts around 8-9 hours with lunch and usually contact you the next day as to the result. I don't think they have an exact quota of how many to put through each assessment centre, but to be honest due to the small numbers they hire I think only 1 or 2 people get through on average per assessment.

Before even getting to the assessment centre there was numerous online tests that I had to complete. This included the usual numerical, personality and verbal reasoning. If you pass these then you get invited to complete a e-tray online which takes around 2-3 hours. Make sure you practice beforehand as I think only the highest scoring candidates get through to the assessment centre which was the final round.

The assessment centre was a formal format and very very tough in my opinion. There are different tasks to complete throughout the whole day. Each task vary in time from 40 minutes to 2 hours.

The stages I went through was the group task, 1 on 1 presentation, 1 on 1 interview and finally the written report. I was surprised that I did not have to complete the online tests again at the centre. You get a document and a little time to prepare before each section but it is not much and you got to work fast and only take down the key-points or you probably would not read it all in time.

The 1 on 1 presentation was tough. You get a document to read in about 30 minutes. The scenario was to say how would you manage this team with the given information and you have 10 minutes to present to the assessor and then another 20 minutes of them asking you questions about your approach.

Make sure you prepare a lot with the information they give you about each task. Practice what you are going to say in each one and what will your approach be towards each task. Do not try and overpower anyone but do not be the quiet guy also. Make sure you speak your mind and try and keep talking throughout each task. For the written tasks I reccommend taking notes whilst reading through it and think of what you are going to write

Group task was given a document to read over and each member of the group is assigned a department in an organisation. When the group discussion starts everyone has to try and argue what option they think will be good. Each person has an extra document which tells them which option would be best for their department so there can be a lot of disagreeing.

1 on 1 presentation was hard because during the 10 minutes I did not have enough material to say. Make sure you take down everything and if you still have time left then try and give examples of how a good leader will act in general circumstances.

The 1 on 1 interview was probably the most relaxed part as you get to talk to someone in a open environment about how you have demonstrated certain skills. You can use examples from just about anywhere so try and think of some beforehand that would be good to use.

The written exercise is a lot of writing and you have to allocate your time wisely as there is more than 1 task to complete. The tasks might not be allocated evenly so make sure you spend the appropriate time for each section.

Fairly normal interview. No out of the ordinary questions that confused me. Three motivational questions and three competency questions. Lasted about 30 minutes, wasn't with a direct employee of the company, but rather an employee from a recruiting company employed by Close Brothers. There was no communication issues, e-mails and phone calls were clear.

Describe a recent mistake you have made. what was the situations, what would you change, and what have you learned from this?

Make sure you are clued up about the company, although there were no specific questions relating to the history of the company, they do ask questions that implicitly want you to focus on why you applied for the company, which is aided for a detailed look through their website

Have not yet attended the assessment centre

After being successful on the online application and psychometric tests, I was invited in the interview which was based in their Nottingham HQ. The interview itself was case study base. It involved me working on 2 case studies which was one to one. It was very analytical and required basic mathematical abilities to work through. Each case study is an hour long and each one is assessed by a different member of HR. Although, no knowledge of credit cards is required, you must be able to understand graphs and ways on improving their services.

The most difficult part was using the data/drawing graphs and interpreting the results.

Work on your basic mathematics such as calculating percentages, ratios, etc...
Be sure to research the company and their various operartions.

The assessment centre went quite quickly and you really get into the case studies which I found to be enjoyable to work through. The interview is able to give you advice in case you were finding it too difficult to get through. It was definitely a fantastic experience!

Why do you want to work in a controversial industry like this ?

After initial application screening, a telephone interview is the next stage. Here the questions are competency based with little technical/financial knowledge tested. Motivational questions were key here, testing reasons for applying to the position. Preparation is a must, you must know the company well and be prepared to answer in detail why you chose SWIP and why the specific asset class. There was a large emphasis on being a team player. Have plenty of unique examples of working well in a team, and leading a team if possible.

After the telephone interview is a face to face interview with one person from HR. A very friendly and enjoyable experience. Here the questions go over your background (CV, cover letter and answers to application questions) and also some more technical content. Here is the time to demonstrate your interest by knowing the company's ethos, business structure, investment strategy, etc.. Technical questions did come up, but they were not too quantitative or hard going, as HR were conducting this stage. Basic asset management and investment knowledge would suffice, although more in-depth knowledge would be very beneficial.

Also, they want to meet you in person to make sure you're approachable, communicative and able to get along with people well, I assume this ties in with their concentration on working well in a team.

My own personal choice not to attend a leading business school to study a masters degree was a talking point. The interviewer was keen to see if I had thought it through properly and weighed up each option. They are less concerned with your actual choice; they want to see the logic behind your decision making, and that you do your homework.

Have a view on investing, tell them what you think and why.

Very friendly and relaxing. One to one interview, quite informal.

After the application and usual tests I progressed onto the video interview. This was quite strange as I had never done anything like this before and talking to myself in a room was fairly strange. However you did have time to practise before had, which I highly recommend doing as it helps you get used to the situation.
The questions were fairly standard asking things like what do you know about Morrisons, example of leading a team, set-back and how you dealt with it and then scheme based ones like why you enjoy finance and why that scheme. Then the end they give you 30 seconds to basically sell your self, which if unprepared is a little unexpected!

Having 30 seconds to say why they should choose you (especially when your not expecting it!)
Having 2 minutes to describe why you love finance.

Make sure you really know some good answers to interview competency questions. Especially based on their core values.

The assessment centre was set around the time when there was floods and so only 6/8 of us were still able to make it in. On arrival they brief you about the day and you have a short presentation about Morrisons history and future.
We had a presentation to do, a group discussion, an interview and a role play.
The interview was again, fairly standard comptency questions but based around their core values (Can do attitude, bringing out the best in people, great service, fresh thinking and one team). This was with 2 assessors.
The group discussion was about splitting a budget to fund certain charitable projects.
The presentation exercise task centred around product selection for a new healthy range. You had some emails all asking for some info to be included in the presentation. You then delivered the presentation to 2 assessors and they asked 4-5 questions about it.
The role play involved being giving a situation that had been happening at work and we as acting manager and ask appropriate questions. However, when meeting with the 2 assessors, they threw in the fact that her own manager had been off which meant that anything you had prepared pretty much went out the window!
All in all a good day but long.

One of the interviews was in a room with two other people. One person was from HR and the other was from management. It was a competency based interview where they started off asking me to talk through my CV. They then asked questions about my job, what I do in my spare time and why they think I am suited to the role. They also asked why they should give me the role and what it was about the company that I liked so much. There were generic questions as well about my notice period and availability and if I had any questions.

I think the most difficult question was actually the one where they asked why should we give you the job? It was a basic question but I was just unprepared. Other questions were like describe a time where you had to overcome failure.

I think others should prepare for competency questions properly but the other things are just an assessment of your personality. It was hard to prepare for the interview so I would say just relax and see what happens.

I had to do a group scenario where we had a plane crash and had to decide what items we could carry. We were observed by around 12 people from HR and management. Another task was to prepare for a presentation where we were split into groups and some prepared when others went off to do the presentation or their interview. A final task was another group one where we had to analyse data and put it into a table.

The first phone interview was pretty standard as far as I can tell. The usual competency questions about various achievements you have had so far and what skills and lessons you had learnt on the way. After this there was an preliminary assessment centre where Tesco Finance Management gave presentations on why it was such a good place to work and what you could expect from the programme. The day was ended with a one to one interview, similar to the phone one, but more in depth. This focussed a lot on what your motivations where for applying for this role and what you hoped to achieve. The final assessment centre started with a dinner the night before and followed by a day of group exorcises as well as individual ones, testing problem solving, team work, general initiative, logic and presentation skills. This ended with an interview with two people which was more a feedback session for you to give your views on the day.

What has been your biggest failing? Are there any ways you have tried to overcome this?

They are looking for people that match there world view. Make sure you have researched the company's position on various issues.

Generally a reasonably fun day, but at the same time quite draining. The day was divided into six sections with an activity in each. These mostly consisted of working in a group, discussing some information presented to you along with a problem you had to solve. The group would then have to present its decisions to the assessors. There was also individual presentation tasks which followed a similar pattern, but you presented your ideas on a one to one basis.