Updated at 31/08/2022 - 05:15 pm
As businesses enter the new normal of development after the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses will need the right finance and accounting personnel for this period to lead to success. So more than ever, you need to ask the right interview questions to ensure that the top candidates are selected for this new post-pandemic normal.
Here are 5 questions to select talent in the finance and accounting industry in interviews to determine whether candidates have the skills and experience required by the business. With these questions, businesses will always assess the necessary skills of candidates regardless of whether they are interviewing face-to-face or remotely.
Interview questions to help select talent in finance and accounting #
1. Do you prefer to work independently or in a team? #
For a small business with few financial and accounting personnel, independent work skills are essential, but for large-scale enterprises with teams and departments responsible for finance and accounting, working skills are essential. Teamwork is an important consideration when recruiting.
In addition, the responsiveness and adaptation to both independent and team working styles have become the recruitment standard of many businesses after the pandemic. Candidates will need teamwork skills when they are part of a team at the office, and the ability to work independently to accommodate periods of working from home.
For that reason, businesses will need to specifically look at this skill from the candidate to determine the work environment in which the candidate wants to spend most of their time on the job. Moreover, when placed in the right environment, candidates can bring out their full value for business growth.
2. How do you ensure your productivity and motivation when working remotely? #
After going through the pandemic, most businesses have stabilized and returned to work at the company, but employees have formed a habit and built an effective work schedule remotely. Therefore, in the future, candidates as well as personnel in all positions will require a more flexible working environment than the traditional one.
Therefore, from now on, businesses need to consider candidates who are effective, engaged and motivated when working remotely.
3. What will you do to improve your skills in the future? #
During the pandemic, the need for employees who are agile, adaptable and flexible with technology at work is enhanced. Those are the skills that are extremely important to face the challenges and technological changes and developments of your business in the future.
Technology is constantly evolving, which means it can be difficult for finance and accounting personnel with a high workload to stay up-to-date with changes. Modern businesses will focus on bringing a culture of learning and upskilling into their organizations with technologyized training courses that make employees comfortable working with these new systems. Therefore, committing to continuing to learn and improve skills to serve the job, making it a habit is a must for most finance and accounting candidates.
Asking questions like these to candidates will help you understand if your candidates are eager to learn and want to improve their technology knowledge. To dig deeper into this commitment, employers can ask what skills, latest software candidates have learned recently and how they apply it to the job.
4. Can you tell about a time when you failed in the past? #
A talent forged in addition to successes is certainly not immune to failures. A person's past failures are also a way to determine their career growth.
Therefore, in order to achieve success in the future, candidates need not only to be able to learn and improve their skills, but also to be able to adapt to change and maintain their performance despite difficulties or failures. lose
By asking candidates to explain when they failed, businesses will learn whether the candidate can really keep up despite difficulties and failures and see it as an opportunity to grow and learn. or not.
A good candidate is willing to admit that they have made a lot of mistakes in the past. More importantly, they most likely learned valuable lessons from these mistakes. Owning past mistakes shows honesty and self-awareness – two important skills for every job, especially in finance and accounting.
However, employers should not be surprised when candidates answer that they have never failed. In fact, there are many such candidates. Ask them how they always succeed. This is well worth listening to. Success does not come from luck, but maybe they are always ready for what they want to conquer.
5. How do you incorporate creativity into your work? #
In the age of digital transformation and the acceleration of automation after the pandemic, people's creative skills are the most important factor to bring value and impact on the job market.
More than ever, positions in business require creativity, innovative thinking and problem solving. As a result, it will become increasingly important to learn accounting candidates about how they incorporate creativity into their work. Employers can learn more by asking them when they come up with a good idea with their colleagues, what habits they listen to podcasts or go for a walk, so they can think creatively or find work solutions faster. .
The best way to approach and evaluate candidates #
Interviews are no longer the only form of assessment for selecting candidates. Many organizations are now looking at additional tests to assess the specific skills needed by a finance-accounting officer, including:
Knowledge test #
When businesses are looking to select talent in the accounting and finance industry, the requirement for highly specialized knowledge is essential. Therefore, businesses can ask candidates to take a knowledge test to evaluate them.
Employers can pre-provision a specialty test and give candidates a set time to return their answers via email.
But more than anyone, a finance and accounting professional needs to know how to manage time and be able to withstand work pressure. Therefore, employers may offer a test in an interview that requires candidates to complete it in a short period of time, from which they can see their response, how to handle the job like under pressure and their performance and expertise.
If the company puts a test in the interview, please give the candidate a separate quiet space to avoid causing discomfort or distraction so that the results do not reflect the candidate's actual ability.
Group interview #
The position of finance-accounting personnel is a position of great responsibility, not easy to perform. Therefore, in addition to professional knowledge, candidates are also required to have good communication skills or effective teamwork, employers should consider group interviews. With this format, the employer needs to inform the candidate in advance who will be present and agree on the process such as who will speak first, how many questions will be asked.
This form of interview will help employers get more in-depth information about the candidate from many aspects such as professional knowledge, communication skills to work with the team and the individual's suitability with the culture. enterpriseization.
