Think about your past and current responsibilities as they relate to performing technical accounting work. For example, if you worked as a staff accountant, you may be responsible for month-end close procedures and can share what that work entailed. If you worked in a financial accounting role, you may be responsible for reviewing quarterly financial statements and cross-referencing workpapers.
You’ll want to go as in-depth as possible for the recruiter to understand the significance of your role. You would want to include the accounts you’re responsible for (i.e. accounts receivable, derivatives, accounts payable, or cash) or, if you’re responsible for specific parts of the financial statement, share which parts as well as which financial statements (i.e. balance sheet, income statement, or cash flow statement). Include dollar amounts of accounts (if it’s not confidential) or the number of accounts you worked with to further substantiate that you were a key player on the team.
This would also be the perfect time for you to share with the interviewer any processes you improved or implemented, especially if your changes minimized error. If you do this, back up your response with examples and numbers.
One possible answer might be:
“In my current role, my company wants us to get the month-end close done in six days. I focus on reconciling accounts, posting closing journal entries, and reviewing general ledgers. I also work with my leadership to look at analytics and assess uncommon fluctuations, primarily for high-risk accounts. I work for a large organization, so I’ve also spent a lot of time working with my internal clients or business group leaders to request documentation necessary for processing and completing my tasks. While there is a lot of technical work involved, there’s quite a bit of communication that I handle between coordinating with my team and other business groups and reporting back to my supervisor. As part of my day-to-day responsibilities, I handle the books for accounts of up to approximately $2 million.”