Discuss your experience in the financial analysis of your previous company's projects.
"As a fresh college graduate, I have no real world experience with this but for my final project, I had to do a full analysis of a publicly traded company. I went online, pulled their financials, and reviewed everything using various ratios and formulas to see if this company would be worth investing in. I really enjoyed the profitability ratios and the return on investment formulas I reviewed for the project. The analysis went so well I actually invested in the company and should be seeing a return on my investment with dividends within a year. It will continue to pay out over time and I'll continue to make a profit on my investment."
"In my current role, I build 13-week cash flow projection models in Excel. The model measures the DCF, WACC, and CAPEX of past, current, and future projects. The business was looking to implement two new additional lines and there were no reports to measure future projects. Building the cash flow projection model provided information that Senior Leaders used to make better decisions. One line was delayed and another was approved to start production, along with the purchase and investment of the equipment and machinery due to my analysis."
You can answer this at any career level. If you're just getting out of school, then discuss a project where you did some type of financial analysis. If you have more work experience, discuss the broad scope of the analysis you did. Always be aware of your ethics and any NDA's you may have signed.
"At my previous company as a financial analyst, I was responsible for analyzing our financial statements to ensure our company had good ratios and was attractive to investors. I'd run ratios daily on the various department's budgets, and once a year I'd review all our financial statements before they were released publicly to ensure we were appealing to potential investors."
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Anonymous Answer
During my time at an Architectural firm, I was supported with the Acquisition of a Canadian Architectural firm. I reviewed the Canadian firm's performance over five years and informed the Board of the potential financial and synergetic benefits of the acquisition using a detailed consolidated 10-year forecast.
Chad's Feedback
Excellent answer! Consider detailing to the interviewer the key sources of information you evaluated when reviewing the firm's 5-year performance. Also, be sure to provide a clear result/outcome to your response to conclude your story example. For example: "Based largely on the detailed forecast I provided, my previous employer made the decision to proceed with the acquisition of the Canadian firm.").
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