FLDP Non-OCR/Technical Q's
Hello,
I am a rising senior at a top 10 university, and looking at the pages of most of the FLDP's, they don't recruit on campus at my school. Do you think this is a significant disadvantage/how do I make sure I can demonstrate my interest?
Also, I am an econ major but have no coursework in Finance/Accounting. I've been studying the basics on my own, but how much do you need to know for the interviews? Or do they tailor the questions depending on your coursework?
Thanks
Note I'm not working, this is anecdotal:
-Whether you're at a disadvantage or not depends on the company. Econ isn't a problem for most companies. Top university will definitely help.
-Demonstrate interest by having finance/accounting-related internship(s), hopefully you did one this summer. If you didn't, find an F500 or an accounting firm near your school and get an internship for the school year.
-As far as interviews, everything I've heard has them at a pretty basic level on the technical side (know the 3 accounting statements and how they relate, cash vs accrual, wacc, net working capital, etc). If you go through a fundamentals of accounting book and a intro to corpfin book, you should be okay I think.
Other thoughts:
-Reach out to alumni at the company to find out more about the process. Anyone from your school at that company should be able to give you some info or at least pass you on to someone who can (if they take the time to talk to ya) -Get on it now, most companies start their FT recruiting in August and I haven't heard of a single one that recruits after December
DM is spot on as usual.
I would not expect them to tailor the questions to your coursework; they have prepared questions for all candidates, but to DM's point, they aren't asking about fama-french either, so you just need to be comfortable with basic-to-intermediate accounting and some corpfin.
Feel free to reach out to current FLDP's on linkedin even if they aren't alumni from your school; many are willing to help.
Feel free to post any other questions. Best of luck.
Like D M said, they best thing you can do is get relevant internships and network your ass off. I come from a similar background as you and i've found that most alumni will be incredibly helpfull if you can show you have some potential. Just in the past week, i'v reached out to three diffirent alumni in various FLDP's who have all been incredibly helpfull and really went out of their way to connect me with the right people, so it's definatly possible to network your way into FLDP interviews you just have to make the effort. You better get started on this now though, because recruiting season is coming up quickly.
As far as interview goes, from what I have heard they will be mostly basic level accounting questions. One person told me the most difficult question he had was explain WACC. Remember, these are leadership grooming positions so they heavily weight your personality and past leadership experiences, they can always teach you the technicals.
From my experience interviewing for internships/FLDP programs/full time roles at F500's, I can tell you that the vast majority of the interview questions I had were behavior based. They did pick out parts of past experience from my résumé and wanted to understand what types of work related accomplishments I had, but I never got the "List the main financial statements", "Explain the difference between fixed and variable costs", or "what is the calculation for WACC?" questions. They assumed I already had that basic knowledge given I had a degree, and lets be honest, any of those simple questions can be answered with a 2 minute google search. You should still have basic finance/accounting knowledge, but what they want to know is what kind of person you are, if you are going to get results that improve the bottom line, if you can be a leader in the company, and if they would want to work with you every day.
How would you recommend reaching out to alumni you find on linkedin? I'm new to linkedin, but is there a way to message people (or is that a paid feature?) Or is it better to "connect" with people and explain why you want to connect? Thanks
FLDP Technical Questions (Originally Posted: 03/02/2015)
Hey guys,
I have a 2nd round interview over the phone next week for an FLDP. I was informed that it would primarily consist of technical questions this time around.
Could anyone offer me insight as to what the questions may be like/what I should refresh on?
Thanks
most are accounting questions
So how did your 2nd round phone interview go for the FLDP? I am facing that this week so if you can offer any advice that would be great. Thnx.
FLDP/Corp.Fin Technical/Excel questions (Originally Posted: 03/12/2015)
I have a final round interview on Monday for an FLDP program, and am trying to prepare as much as I can.
My knowledge of Excel is not too extensive, so I was wondering what programs are typically used (SAP? Pivot tables? etc.)
I have purchased the WSO FDP guide so I plan on reading through that, but any other advice on what I could touch on to prepare would be very helpful.
Thanks guys
The extent of excel questions you'll probably get would be to explain ways in which you've used excel for analytical purposes - nothing technical, just be able to describe ways you've analyzed data.
Know why you want to work at the company you're interviewing with, and really sell your leadership qualities by articulating these experiences through school and internships. The L in these acronyms stands for "Leadership", so if you don't convince your interviewer of your leadership qualities, you won't get the job. Same goes for if you can't demonstrate analytical capability.
I'd expect a lot of behavioral type questions ("tell me about a time when..."), where they'll be trying to draw these characteristics/capabilities out of you. Also, make sure you can talk about everything you put on your resume... I've interviewed people for these programs who stumbled when I would ask a question about something in their interests or based on a bullet they had under a job description... pretty silly if you can't describe what you wrote.
Try not to come across as too nervous, make good eye contact, and have a good conversation and you'll do fine.
Thanks for your help,
In the previous interviews they didn't really ask any questions to test my basic finance knowledge, i.e. DCF, CAPM, etc. Should I expect these during the final round?
Final rounds tend to be very fit based. I'd spend most of your time working on clearly communicating your story. My guess would be that you will get few, if any, technical questions.
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