How to Answer: In your previous accounting experience, what's the toughest group you had to get cooperation from? How did you handle it?
Advice and answer examples written specifically for an Accounting Clerk job interview.
18. In your previous accounting experience, what's the toughest group you had to get cooperation from? How did you handle it?
How to Answer
Getting buy-in can be a challenge from time to time for various reasons. Possible issues might include: major company changes, new company vision, launching new company processes, or even cultural differences. What has been your toughest sell to get the cooperation of others? Often, it's the situation that's challenging and not the group itself. Begin by telling the interviewer your situation. What were you trying to get cooperation for? Who were you trying to get cooperation from? Next, share the group's reaction. What kind of pushback did you get? Then, share how you successfully overcame the pushback to achieve cooperation from the group.
Sometimes departments do not mesh well together so when you are reliant on another department to get you data it can sometimes be a challenge.
Written by Samantha Hamilton on February 4th, 2019
Entry Level
"While this is accounting, when I worked in student government, we had a huge lack of participation from certain groups of kids. I made it my mission to involve everyone in some way. I reached out to the groups individually and got a lot of positive responses. We had the highest rate of participation of any class that school has seen because I went out of my way to involve everyone. We even had a punk rock themed dance at one point to convince the punk kids they could contribute too."
Written by Samantha Hamilton on February 4th, 2019
Answer Example
"When I worked for my previous company there was a lot of tension between the IT department and the Accounting department. Both departments thought they where the most important in the company and both were equally valuable because you could not run the company without either one. I was able to build a relationship with the IT department and soon became the liason between the departments. I made friends with two of the IT guys and we would regularly go out to lunch to maintain our working relationship and friendship. I still see those guys once a week at our poker game because maintaining that relationship has been very important to us."
Written by Samantha Hamilton on February 4th, 2019
Experienced
"Accounting has always had an air of importance in every company I've worked with. I went into one company and the accounting department literally said they ran the show. I went in with a humble attitude to other departments and found that everyone hated accounting. I soon started commenting on using an internal customer outlook for all our accounting and my boss picked up on it. Soon, we were holding training for all accounting to improve their attitudes toward the rest of the company. We found that if you treat everyone like your customer and focus on good customer service, everyone will be happier. Not everyone liked it, but it was what the company needed."
Written by Samantha Hamilton on February 4th, 2019