The Finance Department of an organization is responsible for preparation and presentation of accounting matters and provision of financial information to managers.
The Finance Department manages the book keeping rules by keeping the purchase and sales in records and also the capital spending and incomes.
With this regular practice they are able to derive yearly balances and prepare a balance sheet. Apart from annual accounts, management also requires day to day financial information for planning and investment purposes.
The salaries and wages from a peon to a director are worked in the finance department so the finance department is the main head of the organization.
Thus, employers tend to choose the best option among the candidates to continue with the same financial health and performance as per previous time periods.
The skills and attributes required in a candidate should be very impressive and quick mind reader to commensurate with the fast growing company accountability:
Top Skills Finance Employers are Looking in Employees:
1. Strong Technical base:
When technicalities are concerned, the employers demand finance professionals who are up to date with the change in the accounting system and legislative documentation.
The role of an accountant is continuously evolving due to the evolving changes in the finance act every year.
The candidates are expected to be qualified or trained with specialist courses on financial reporting, Direct Tax, Indirect Tax and all the upcoming essentials for updated version.
2. Awareness with industrial figures:
Candidates who are applying fresh for any industry or who have never worked before in the selected sector need not feel that they don’t possess the experience factor.
They just need to be aware of the industrial phenomenon and the facts and figures of the industry.
Employers are ready to appoint freshers in a hope that their “potential worth” may affect the organization in a good way.
3. All round IT skills:
Accountants are expected to have a higher level of understanding than the other staff for complex information.
He should have the ability to deal with the complex matters present in front of the company in relation to any deals, contracts, agreements etc.
Accountants are also expected to be fully equipped with the IT skills as nowadays each and every transaction related to finance or non finance, demand a polished way of looking at it.
4. Auditing and compliance related knowledge:
A must have for finance candidates is the knowledge of auditing areas and practices and its compliance.
He should prepare and maintain his papers as mentioned in the act and as it shall be convenient for the auditors to come and check in a smooth manner.
An accountant should understand the way an auditor will work. He should be in tune with the compliance he has to fulfill before due dates.
The staff should understand the importance of deadlines and due dates in order to avoid penalties and interest due to negligence mistakes.
5. Product and valuation knowledge:
The candidate should have the knowledge about the product and its demand in the market.
The raw materials required for making the products, the timing required for making it and the valuation of the product by allocating fixed and variable overheads plus required profit percentage.
The knowledge of the product will help the candidate to understand its accountability.
Each type of agency like trading or manufacturing or both, have different procedure for accounting. The candidate should be aware of the necessities.
6. Work experience relating to international transactions:
Some positions require experience in internal transactions in addition to the various attributes of accounting.
He wants a candidate fully versed with all the aspects of finance when the employer is planning to work in a scale outside his country.
Nowadays, dealing with MNCs is unavoidable for any company or organization at any scale of management.
To ensure proper accounting of such dealings, the employers looks for candidates well equipped with the impact of international transactions.
7. Communication skills:
Employers rely upon the expressive and strong interpersonal skills of the candidate to increase their relationships with the clients.
They want their staff to gain the trust of the clients so that the clients invest and work with the organization.
The impressive communication skills add as an advantage in the finance department as it helps with the dealings interdepartmentally and outside the organization.
8. Stability aspect in career:
A staff in financial department needs to keep him updated of all the transactions during the current and previous year.
He also requires candidates who give him long term commitment so that the annual procedures related to accounting and bookkeeping becomes familiar to the staff and the employer can place high level of reliance on the staff compared to the previous year.
The employer requires stability in his staff to place reliance on him.
9. Relationship management skills:
A financial staff needs to be polite and humble in his approach as he is the only person who needs to indulge in works related to all departments.
He needs to communicate and extract exact and timely information from the departments to reflect the facts in a quantified manner in accounts.
The daily functions of payments and approvals needs to be passed through the finance department. Thus, the staffs need to be informative and quick minded
10. Skills for organizing things:
In its essence, the employer wants you to have a deep understanding of the transactions you are dealing with. You should be very particular and firm about paper work and filing part.
A financial staff shall be very particular about maintaining regular files and papers because not only financial but also statutory related matters are also taken care of from this department.
11. Ethical and honest:
It is a matter of high responsibility to handle and manage other people’s money. And to fulfill such responsibility, an employer needs a man of high level confidence so that the choice of employers who work in the purview of accounting and banking areas include a person who possesses certain ethical aspects.
The employer has invested his time and money in the candidate and he will not want his investment to worsen.
12. Logical problem solving approach:
The employer looks for problem solving abilities while asking financial interview questions. He judges in a candidate the ability to look at a problem, work through its solution and derive results wherever needed to validate his approach.
The logical and problem solving approach will come in the lime light when a candidate will show his personal responsibility to addressing complex situations.
13. Commercial awareness in the respective fields:
Most employers test your commercial awareness at the time of taking his graduate interview.
The employer will test on your understanding of the insurance broking firms, actuarial firms, consultancy agencies and understanding of their terminologies of the business in which you have applied.
He will also enquire about your knowledge about the market and its rulers in which you have applied.
14. Own Initiative taker:
The candidate should have the initiative to create new forms and plans for upliftment of the procedures.
Sometimes, it is required by the finance personnel to go and meet higher officials in matters related to taxations, commercial aspects, law related queries and many more unforeseen circumstances.
At this stage, the candidate should not back off for the fear of interacting with higher authorities, instead move forward with a problem solving attitude to clear the problems and emerge with a correct solution.
15. Ambitious and dedicated towards job:
Ambition is not a topic of speech. It is a topic of evidence. The recruiters look for evidence to prove that you are ambitious. These ambitions give them confidence in candidate to approach them for a standard task.
To Wrap Up:
To get a job in financial sector, you need to convince your interviewers that you possess skills and attributes which will incline you to do your job well.
It is your judgment as to which skills they require and from their requirement, which of the skills you already possess and which of the skills you can develop further while working with the employer.
Employers will be ready to employ freshers if they think that the potential worth of the candidate will help the organization growth.
