Landing a corporate finance manager role is no easy feat. You’ll need to demonstrate deep financial expertise strategic thinking abilities leadership skills, and decision-making prowess. That’s why the interview is so critical – it’s your chance to prove you have what it takes.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the 10 most common corporate finance manager interview questions, along with tips on how to craft winning responses Master these questions and you’ll be well on your way to landing your dream job!
1. What kind of financial reports does upper management need and why?
The purpose of this question is to see how well you understand the main financial reports and metrics that executives use to make decisions. Here are a few tips for a stellar response:
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The income statement, the balance sheet, and the cash flow statement are the three most important financial statements. Explain the insights each provides.
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Highlight important performance metrics like revenue growth, profit margins, ROIC, etc. and their significance.
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Explain how regular financial reporting helps keep an eye on budgets, predictions, and the overall health of the business’s finances.
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Provide examples of specialized reports you’ve created in past roles to address specific management needs.
The key is demonstrating you grasp what financial data matters most to executives and how to deliver it effectively to enable strategic planning.
2. What methods/metrics do you use to evaluate the organization’s progress?
This aims to assess your approach in tracking the company’s financial progress. Some tips:
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Discuss core financial ratios – liquidity, profitability, operational efficiency, etc. Explain how you’d use them.
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Beyond ratios, mention metrics like revenue growth, market share, client retention that indicate progress.
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Describe how you’d benchmark against competitors and industry standards.
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Explain how you’d blend quantitative metrics with qualitative insights from operations, sales teams etc.
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Provide examples of evaluating progress by comparing actuals vs. budgets/projections.
The goal is to exhibit your well-rounded approach using key metrics tailored to the company’s specific needs and objectives.
3. What are key elements to look at when evaluating the company’s investments?
This tests your thought process around capital allocation. Here are some tips:
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Explain approaches like NPV, IRR, payback period, opportunity cost of capital. Discuss how you’d apply them.
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Beyond numerical analysis, highlight qualitative aspects – risks, alignment with strategy, competitor moves.
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For an acquisition, discuss reviewing revenue growth, cost structure, company culture fit.
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Provide examples of how you evaluated major investments in the past. Share successes and lessons learned.
Demonstrate you can take a holistic view of investments, balancing both numerical and qualitative factors. Share experiences that inspire confidence.
4. Is a cash flow statement enough to tell whether a company is doing well?
This aims to assess your understanding of using financial statements. Some pointers:
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Explain merits of cash flow statement – provides view of liquidity and cash generating ability.
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Discuss importance of reviewing other statements like income statement and balance sheet as well to get full picture.
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Share an example of when sole reliance on cash flow statement was inadequate to determine company’s financial health.
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Highlight how you’d analyze trends across periods and growth rates of key line items.
Convey that while cash flow statement provides critical insights, it must be analyzed in conjunction with other statements to properly evaluate financial performance.
5. How do you evaluate the costs and benefits of financing options?
This tests your ability to analyze different financing methods. Some tips:
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Discuss debt vs equity financing – compare based on cost, cash flow, dilution, risk tolerance, control.
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Explain how you’d calculate cost of debt and equity to determine optimal capital structure.
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Share how you’d simulate effects on financial projections under different financing scenarios.
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Provide an example of recommending ideal financing option by weighing pros and cons for a company.
The goal is to exhibit strong analytical skills and the ability to balance synergies and tradeoffs of various financing options.
6. How would you go about reducing costs in a company without sacrificing growth?
This aims to assess your skill in boosting profitability through cost optimization. Some pointers:
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Discuss analyzing expenses to identify non-essential costs that can be reduced or eliminated.
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Explain how you’d leverage automation, process improvements to drive efficiency.
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Share how you’d work with department heads to understand constraints and avoid impacting operations.
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Provide an example of successfully executing a cost reduction initiative from a previous role.
Showcase your strategic thinking to trim costs while maintaining growth momentum and customer satisfaction. Share examples that inspire confidence.
7. How would you evaluate the financial viability of a new product or expansion plan?
This tests your ability to analyze the financial feasibility of business proposals. Some tips:
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Discuss creating forecasts/projections for revenues, costs, profitability under different scenarios.
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Explain conducting breakeven analysis, sensitivity analysis to assess risk appetite.
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Describe benchmarking against competitors, existing products to estimate realistic projections.
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Share examples of advising for/against proposals by analyzing financial attractiveness.
Demonstrate strong analytical skills and the ability to modeldifferent possibilities and provide data-driven recommendations.
8. Describe your experience with financial reporting and variance analysis.
Here interviewers want to gauge your skills in financial reporting and analyzing variances between actuals and forecasts. Some pointers:
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Discuss processes for regular financial reporting – consolidating data, reconciling accounts, maintaining accuracy.
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Share examples of delivering meaningful financial reports to management – highlighting trends, insights.
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Explain your approach to variance analysis – identifying drivers through revenue and cost KPIs.
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Provide examples of insights uncovered through variance analysis and how you drove corrective actions.
Convey your meticulous approach and ability to deliver robust financial reporting and analysis that enhances business performance.
9. How do you evaluate the financial viability and risks of a potential acquisition target?
This aims to test your proficiency in acquisition analysis. Some tips:
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Discuss conducting due diligence – reviewing financials, projections, risks. Analyzing growth, profitability, company culture fit.
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Explain valuation approaches – DCF, comparable companies, precedent transactions. Building LBO models.
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Share examples of evaluating attractiveness by comparing price vs. value derived from analysis.
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Provide instances of advising for/against deals based on financial viability.
Exhibit strong analytical skills and the ability to make astute recommendations by holistically assessing acquisition targets.
10. Have you ever had to present complex financial information to the executive team?
Here they want to evaluate your communication abilities as a finance leader. Some pointers:
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Discuss strategies to simplify complex information through clear visualizations, summaries, analogies.
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Share examples of financial presentations to executives – objectives, key highlights, outcome.
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Explain how you determined appropriate level of detail, tailored to the audience’s knowledge.
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Convey your approach to fielding questions and resolving concerns after presentations.
Demonstrate you can convey complex financial data in an impactful yet understandable manner to drive executive decision making.
Key Takeaways
Mastering corporate finance manager interview questions requires not just technical expertise, but the ability to think critically and demonstrate leadership potential. Keep these tips in mind:
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Thoroughly understand the company’s financials and objectives. Align your responses.
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Provide specific examples and anecdotes to support your answers.
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Exhibit analytical rigor, strategic thinking, and sound decision-making principles.
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Demonstrate excellent communication skills and executive presence.
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Convey your motivations for the role and passion for the field.
Preparation and practice are key. With the right approach, you’ll be poised to knock your interview out of the park!
Submit an interview question
Questions and answers sent in will be looked over and edited by Toptal, LLC, and may or may not be posted, at their sole discretion.
Toptal sourced essential questions that the best interim finance managers can answer. Driven from our community, we encourage experts to submit questions and offer feedback.
Behavioral: When you lead people, what is your leadership style? What inspires your management philosophy?
Look for examples of leadership situations. You don’t need to worry about how many people you actually lead. Motivating an intern at the start of their career can work just as well as motivating 10 long-term employees. Instead, pay attention to how they explain their leadership philosophy and how that fits with the examples of situations where managers need to step in.
Asking the candidate where the idea for their management style came from is a good way to get them to think about the beginning of their career and maybe even their deeper motivations. Whether it’s a former boss, mentor, or even a book that inspired the candidate, pay attention to how they learn from others and use the good things they’ve said. 2 .
Technical: List the two differences between diluted normalized earnings per share and earnings per share.
One-off revenues/costs from seasonality or restructurings are subtracted/added back to earnings to “normalize” them.
Potential shares outstanding, such as options, warrants, preferred stock, and convertible securities, are added to outstanding stock to get a picture of all the equity holders who have their shares diluted. 3 .
Technical: How would you explain an interest rate swap derivative to a layman?
This question checks two things: first, how well the candidate understands what a swap instrument is technically; second, how well they can explain how it works in a clear and vivid way.
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Behavioral: Walk me through a time when your knowledge of financial regulations/standards enhanced your company.
Most finance managers have a classical training background in finance, such as CFA or ACA accreditations. As an example of a good way to use these skills, think about how you could use them to help businesses grow or get rid of wasteful practices. One example is making real changes to how things are run or changing an accounting measure to make financial reports more accurate. 5 .
Behavioral: Have you ever disagreed with senior management? How did you conduct yourself?
Finance managers talk to senior management all the time, and sometimes they have to break down the wall between what the business can actually afford and what it wants to do in the future. Finance managers need to be able to effectively guide senior management and turn their vision into a financial plan of action. Disagreement doesn’t always mean disobeying, so you should look at both the candidate’s strong character and convictions, as well as their ability to bring people together and work out their differences. 6 .
Behavioral: Describe a time when you had to work with people from different business units to come up with a creative solution to a difficult issue.
Cross-functionality is an important part of a finance manager’s job, and being able to deal with different stakeholders is a skill that needs to be tested. Good candidates will correctly map out an example using the STAR (situation, task, action, and result) framework. The very best ones will make sure to keep things simple and to the point, without using complicated plots.
Look for examples of actions that demonstrate project management, communication, and motivational skills. 7 .
Technically, you have been asked to bring a four-slide deck with you to your meeting with the CEO tomorrow about the current state of the company’s finances. Walk me through your slides.
The income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet are the three most important financial statements for a business that can be put on three slides. On these slides, a high-level (i. e. , not itemized) overview would be necessary, with headline numbers clearly displayed. Commentary on these slides must describe the performance contributing to the numbers.
On the last slide, you can give a qualitative assessment of the business’s finances. For example, you could talk about new projects that will have an impact on the company’s finances, recent developments in the capital markets, or your predictions for the future. Using a strategy framework like Porter’s Five Forces shows a planned method for dealing with all the issues that matter to the company.
No matter how creative the candidate’s answer is, make sure it fits with the task’s goal of giving a short view of the company’s current financial health. 8 .
Behavioral: Recall a time where you had to prepare a financial analysis under a tight deadline. What steps did you take to succeed, or if you failed, how would you do it differently?.
Asking for a success or failure scenario is an interesting dynamic to assess the candidate’s humility. The situation they describe doesn’t matter; what matters is how they dealt with stress or what they learned and what steps they took to fix a mistake.
If a candidate describes a failure, celebrate their candor and rounded nature for exposing a weakness. But be sure to ask them about more positive scenarios in future questions. 9 .
What’s the difference between free cash flow to equity (FCFE) and free cash flow to the firm (FCFF)?
FCFF excludes the impact of interest expense and net debt issuance/repayments. Both aspects are included in FCFE, which is a measure of levered free cash flow, hence its inclusion.
There is more to interviewing than tricky technical questions, so these are intended merely as a guide. Not every good candidate for the job will be able to answer all of them, and answering all of them doesn’t mean they are a good candidate. At the end of the day, hiring remains an art, a science — and a lot of work.
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FINANCE MANAGER Interview Questions And Answers (How To Become A Finance Manager!)
FAQ
How do I prepare for a Finance Manager interview?
What are the three questions a financial manager asks?
What are the basic corporate finance interview questions & answers?
This first part covers basic corporate finance interview questions and answers. #1 – What are Financial Statements of a company and what do they tell about a company? Ans. Financial Statements of a company are statements, in which the company keeps a formal record about the company’s position and performance over time.
What questions should you ask a finance manager?
Technical questions are the bedrock of a Finance Manager’s interview, testing your knowledge of financial principles, accounting standards, and fiscal management. You’ll need to exhibit a strong grasp of financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, and analysis.
How do I prepare for a finance manager interview?
The key to succeeding in a Finance Manager interview is to come prepared with a deep understanding of the financial landscape of the company you’re applying to, as well as a clear demonstration of your financial acumen and leadership skills.
What is a finance manager interview?
In the competitive field of finance, a Finance Manager interview is not just a chance to showcase your expertise but also an opportunity to engage in a meaningful dialogue about the role and the organization. Asking incisive questions reflects your analytical acumen and demonstrates that you’re not just looking for any job, but the right job.
