What do you consider to be the essential skills for an accountant to add value to their organization?

Overview

Knowing tax rules, creating statements, and keeping books are essential tasks for any accountant. Interviewers want to know that you can go further. This question is designed to evaluate your analytical, decision making, communication, critical thinking, and business skills. This is an opportunity to highlight your knowledge of technology and data analytics, as well as your leadership abilities.

Answer framework

Elevate your answer

Accounting is more than compiling financial numbers. Your response should focus on higher level skills such as analytical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to communicate effectively with others.

Make it about them

Tie the skills you mention to the specific functions of the role. Share your strengths through the lens of the contribution you can make to the company, and the value you’ll add to your team.

Highlight your experience

This is a great opportunity to highlight your general business, strategic, and operational knowledge. Demonstrate that you understand how your skills directly impact teams and decision outcomes.

Sample answers

Obviously, any accountant should be well-versed in numbers, tax, auditing, and bookkeeping. But, I believe an accountant’s role is to provide stakeholders with timely and relevant information to help them to make the most appropriate decisions. This requires a deeper analysis of the issues affecting the company. This is why I believe a skilled accountant should possess strong analytical and problem-solving skills, the ability to think critically, and strong communication skills to convey complex information in a clear, relatable way. Whenever I report information to stakeholders, I always begin with reported results. Then, I align those results to the needs of the audience requiring the information. I know people count on me to translate complex financial information in terms they recognize and that will solve their needs. Attention to detail is necessary to identify errors, discrepancies, and inaccuracies to ensure that mistakes do not have serious ramifications for the company and its clients. But, solving complex problems requires a combination of detail focus and critical thinking. Great accountants are asking why. Why this answer worked well: The candidate was able to show the value they can add to both the company and stakeholders. The answer detailed how accountants offer clarity at the highest levels of decision making. The candidate demonstrated confidence in their ability to identify issues and solve complex problems.

Tips

Acknowledge core skills, then go further.

Choose skills that relate to the role.

Speak to high level accounting concepts.