Accounting Behavioral interview questions and Answers

31 Commonly Used Big 4 Accounting Firm Interview Questions (Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG)

Big 4 interview on the horizon? One of the best things you can do to prepare for your interview is to research the most common Big 4 interview questions, and practice them ahead of time.

Getting together a list and practicing the interview questions is essential because it makes you more calm, look professional, and come off as a better candidate.

Write down your answers and practice answering them. Make sure you actually say your answers out loud as well. Many times we think something sounds good, only to speak it out loud and completely lose confidence. Have a friend to help you practice by reading the interview questions and having you answer them. Doing this makes you less nervous for the real thing and helps you hone how fluid your responses sound.

There is a limit to how much you should practice your interview Q&A, however. It is important not to just read off what you memorized because it will show and you will sound like a robot. Instead, have the answer as a base for discussion and have an actual conversation, not a speech.

A lot of the interview questions will be behavioral and call on past experiences (ex: tell me about a time you had to overcome difficult team members). One of the best parts of answering the interview questions ahead of time is that it catalogs many of these types of experiences. If they give you a question that you hadn’t directly prepared for, you may still have other relevant experiences that are right at your disposal to talk about.

It is also good to have something “scripted” to fall back on if you freeze up. Having something canned is much better than being awkward and sitting there thinking about (a good) example you can tell them.

The truth of the matter is the purpose of these interviews are more to see how you can answer the questions, how professional you are, how fluently you can communicate, and really whether you would be enjoyable to work with. If you have an interview spot, you probably have a high GPA and they already have already screened you for your book smarts.’ These interviews are designed to separate the personable people from the socially inept.

Common Big 4 Interview Questions (KPMG, Deloitte, E&Y, PwC)

1) Walk me through your resume*

2) Tell me a little about yourself or background*

3) Why KPMG/Deloitte/PwC/E&Y?*

4) Why audit/tax/advisory?*

5) Where do you see your yourself in 5 to 10 years

6) Tell me about a time when you had to be a leader

7) Tell me about a time when you were had to overcome an obstacle to get something done

8) Tell me about a goal you had and how you achieved it

9) Tell me about a time when someone asked you to do something unethical

10) How well do you work do in a team setting

11) Give me an example of a time when you were in a moral dilemma and how you handled it

12) Give me an example of a time when you were working in a team, and a team member wasn’t meeting their responsibilities (and how you handled it)