Assesses time management skills and the ability to prioritize.
What Are Recruiters Looking for in Accountants?
According to recruiters in the accounting industry, the most desirable candidates have experience working in public accounting for a large firm. But if you don’t have that, don’t let it deter you! There are many other skills and experiences that you can demonstrate to set yourself apart.
When interviewing for accounting roles specifically, it’s important to demonstrate a healthy mix of both technical acumen and soft skills. One of the biggest myths I hear about accountants is that they sit behind a computer for hours, looking at numbers and ridiculous formulas in Microsoft Excel with no human contact, ever. On the contrary: Accountants must demonstrate skills in a variety of areas to be successful in the job hunt, such as communication, client engagement, data analysis, and time management.
Here are the five main skills that I found most valuable as a recruiter:
Written Communication: Hiring managers will want to know that your writing skills are on point—after all, you may be drafting audit reports, creating workpapers, developing and editing financial statements, and providing updates to your internal or external clients as needed.
Verbal Communication: Strong verbal communication skills are important to your success in accounting as you’ll be speaking with clients, internal or external, in just about every aspect of your work.
Time Management and Prioritization: Accountants take on a great variety of tasks, especially during month-end, quarter-end, and year-end accounting. Just in one day, you may be in and out of client meetings, drafting workpapers, reviewing financial documentation, and walking through your clients’ accounting processes. It’s important to be able to work well when there are many things going on at once and know how to organize your work so your tasks get done on time.
Technical Experience: There’s no doubt that accounting is a pretty technical role. Aisha Holt, a corporate accounting recruiter at Tradesmen International, makes sure to gauge candidates’ experiences with various accounting tools and software. Accounting programs are used to prepare financial statements, make journal entries, perform account reconciliations, and complete other important accounting procedures. You’ll find yourself working with these tools every single day, so recruiters want to see that you’re knowledgeable and up-to-date on the latest emerging technologies of the profession.
Attention to Detail: Maintaining accurate reporting with zero errors is crucial in accounting. Can you imagine the financial implications if an account was overstated or understated by $1 million dollars and an auditor didn’t pick up on the error? The work of an accountant is to maintain high integrity, as the public is dependent on ethical reporting, and there are also a slew of regulations that accountants must uphold. As such, candidates need to show that they do sweat the small stuff and aren’t likely to make or miss an error that leads to a massive loss.
Here are 10 questions that you may be asked in your accounting interview so that recruiters and hiring managers can see whether or not you have the skills and experience needed to do the job—plus advice on how to answer them.
48) Define overhead in terms of accounting
It is the indirect expenditure of a company such as salaries, rent dues, etc.
The trade bills are accounting documents generated against each transaction.
51) What is compound journal entry?
A compound journal entry is just like other accounting entries where there is more than one debit, more than one credit, or more than one of both debits and credits. It is essentially a combination of several simple journal entries.
TOP 20 ACCOUNTANT Interview Questions And Answers!