Questions to Ask Finance Professionals
Questions to ask finance professionals when you are networking: in an informational interview with someone in banking, investment management, corporate finance or accounting, or face to face at a finance networking event. They are written for students and career changers deciding which corner of the industry to aim at, and they run in the order a conversation goes: openers that work in a crowded room, then the work, hours and pay, moving up, the industry and getting in. Five or six fill a twenty-minute call, so the guide covers which to choose.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
Which part of finance are you in, and what does your team do for the rest of the firm?
Why ask it
Finance covers a bank's deal team, a fund's research desk, a company's planning group and an audit practice, so get the map before anything else. The second half shows whether their team earns revenue, controls it or reports on it, which tells you which of your later questions they can really answer.
How did you get from your first job to the seat you are in now?
Why ask it
Most people can tell this in two minutes, which suits a crowded room at a networking event. Listen for the crossings between sectors, such as audit into corporate finance or banking into a fund, because those are the routes open to someone starting where you are.
What has kept your team busy this quarter?
Why ask it
It is a safe way to ask about current work without touching a named client or a live deal. Year end, a budget round, a fundraise or a run of refinancings each show you what the calendar of that seat looks like.
What part of the job would surprise someone outside finance?
Why ask it
This is an easy question to answer well, which makes it a good one for someone you met two minutes ago. Answers often turn on how little modeling the senior roles involve and how much of the day is coordination.
What made you choose this side of finance over the others you looked at?
Why ask it
People who weighed banking against a fund, or a company's finance team against an accounting practice, remember what tipped it. Their reasons hand you criteria to reuse, even if your own answer comes out differently.
Is there anything from your degree or your first job that you still use every week?
Why ask it
The honest reply is often a short list: accounting basics, a way of laying out a spreadsheet, writing a clear email. It tells a student which coursework carries over, and it tells a career changer that an earlier job is not wasted.
Who do you spend most of your day talking to: clients, colleagues or a screen?
Why ask it
Three choices make it quick to answer over a drink. A relationship manager, a fund analyst and a financial controller would each pick differently, and the pick says more about whether the seat suits your temperament than the job title does.
What still interests you about the work after the years you have put in?
Why ask it
Asked this way it skips the brochure answer about steep learning curves. Whatever a ten-year person still enjoys, be it the markets, the clients or building a team, is a fair guide to what the job offers once the early excitement fades.
The Work
What does your firm get paid for, and by whom?
Why ask it
How the money comes in shapes who you answer to, what counts as good work and how secure the seat is. Advisory fees, a management fee on assets, carried interest and a salary paid out of a company's operating budget make for four very different working lives.
Can you walk me through yesterday?
Why ask it
Asking about one real day gets you specifics instead of a job description. Note how much of it was meetings, how much was in a spreadsheet, and how much was chasing other people for information, because the last category is usually larger than anyone expects.
How much of your work is judgment, and how much is following a process someone else designed?
Why ask it
It is the honest version of asking whether the work is interesting, and the ratio shifts with seniority and sector. Early roles in audit, transaction services and reporting tend to sit on the process side, which is fine if you know it going in.
What does a junior person on your team actually produce in a week?
Why ask it
You are asking for deliverables: a reconciled ledger, three pages of a pitch book, an updated model, a variance commentary. Those nouns are the real content of the first two years, and they differ more between sectors than the job titles suggest.
Which tools do you live in: Excel, a market data terminal, an accounting system or something built in-house?
Why ask it
The tools give the work away. Someone who spends the day in an accounting system and a consolidation package has a different job from someone watching a terminal, and knowing which ones matter tells you what to practice before you apply.
Who reviews your work before it leaves the team, and what do they usually catch?
Why ask it
Review layers are how finance controls error, and the number of them above a junior decides how much of the job is rework. What gets caught, whether formatting, a wrong assumption or a figure that does not tie, shows what the team treats as unforgivable.
How does the culture on your team differ from other places you have worked?
Why ask it
A comparison gets further than asking whether the culture is good, which only invites a yes. Listen for how people are treated when a deadline is slipping and whether juniors get in front of clients, and remember it describes one team and not the whole firm.
What did you get wrong in your first couple of years, and what did it cost?
Why ask it
Specific mistakes in finance are instructive because the failure modes repeat: a broken link in a model that reached a client, a deadline missed because nobody flagged a dependency. Asking about cost rather than lesson keeps the answer concrete.
When did you last have to tell a client or a senior person something they did not want to hear?
Why ask it
The story shows whether pushback is tolerated where they work: who they told, how it was received and whether anything changed. If no example comes to mind, ask how a junior would raise a doubt about a number, since that is the version that would apply to you.
How much of your year is tied to a calendar, like month end, quarter end or results season?
Why ask it
Company finance and accounting run on the close, funds on reporting dates and audit on a busy season, while deal work follows no calendar at all. Knowing which rhythm a seat has lets you picture the year, including when a holiday is realistic.
What part of the job would you hand to someone else tomorrow if you could?
Why ask it
A kinder way to ask what is tedious. The reply is usually specific, such as chasing data from another department or reformatting a deck for the fifth time, and you should assume a junior hire inherits it.
Hours and Pay
How many hours was last week, and was that a normal week?
Why ask it
A number for one real week is harder to polish than a view on work-life balance. Follow up on what makes a bad week bad: a close or a results date can be planned around, and a deal that comes alive on a Friday cannot.
When work lands late in the day, who decides whether it waits until morning?
Why ask it
Total hours matter less than who controls them. A client, a senior banker, a market that opens overseas or a reporting deadline each produce a different kind of evening, and only some of them can be planned around.
How have office days and working from home settled on your team?
Why ask it
Policies vary by firm and by desk, and in some countries certain regulated roles have to be done from a supervised location. Ask what the team does in practice, because the written policy and the days people really come in are often two different things.
How is pay structured at your level, between base, bonus and anything deferred?
Why ask it
Structure is a fair question where an exact figure is not. Deferred stock, clawbacks, and a bonus that is most of total pay all change how much freedom you have to leave, which is the part people underestimate at twenty-two.
How much of a bonus depends on your own results, your team's and the firm's year?
Why ask it
The split tells you how much of your pay you can influence. In some seats a strong individual year is flattened by a weak year for the firm, and people inside know which way it tends to go even if they will not share figures.
What does pay progression look like over the first five years, in rough bands and not exact numbers?
Why ask it
Asking for bands keeps it professional and gives them room to answer. Pay varies widely by city, country and type of employer, so treat what you hear as one data point and check it against a published salary survey for your own market.
Did your employer pay for your exams or give study leave, and what did they expect in return?
Why ask it
Support for professional qualifications runs from full fees and paid study days to nothing at all. Some employers ask for costs back if you leave within a set period, and the terms depend on the employer and the country, so ask how it worked for them.
What have you given up to keep doing this?
Why ask it
Ask it late, and only if the conversation has been warm. The answers tend to be concrete, a city they wanted to live in, years of weekends, a relationship, and they are the part of the trade-off that recruitment materials never mention.
Moving Up
What separates the people who last from the people who leave in the first two years?
Why ask it
People often reach past technical skill to accuracy under time pressure, patience with rounds of revision and a readiness to say when something looks wrong. Notice whether they describe fixed traits or habits you could practice before you start.
How does promotion work at your firm, and roughly how many people at your level get through?
Why ask it
Some finance careers run on a pyramid with set analyst and associate years where most people are expected to leave, and others promote only when a seat opens up. Ask which theirs is, because it sets how long you can plan to stay before you have even started.
What is the most useful feedback you have had on your own work, and who gave it?
Why ask it
It finds out whether feedback is a habit or an annual form. A story about a manager who marked up a model line by line in the first month points to a place that trains; a blank look points to one where you learn by getting it wrong in front of a client.
What do people at your level worry about that juniors never think about?
Why ask it
Often the worry moves from getting the work right to bringing the work in, or to answering for other people's errors. Ask when that turn came and whether they welcomed it, which says if the later years suit someone who chose finance for the analysis.
Have you moved between teams or sectors, and how hard was the move?
Why ask it
Finance looks like one industry from outside and behaves like several from inside. Whether an auditor can join a deal team, or a banker a company's finance function, depends on timing and on which skills the receiving side counts, and people who have made a move know how long the window stays open.
Who has had the most influence on your career so far, and how did you come to work with them?
Why ask it
Backing in finance tends to come from whoever you did good work for early on, more than from a formal mentoring scheme. How that relationship began is a pattern you can copy in a first job.
Where do people from your team go when they leave?
Why ask it
For many people the first finance job is a way into the second one, so where leavers land is part of what the seat pays. Some teams send people to industry, investing or their own ventures and some only to the same seat at a rival, and if nobody can name where anyone went, that is an answer too.
Which of your skills would transfer if you left finance, and which would not?
Why ask it
Modeling, reading accounts and explaining numbers to people who do not like them travel well; knowledge of one product or one firm's systems often does not. How easily they answer hints at whether they feel free to leave or tied to the pay.
The Industry
How did the last big market or rate move change your actual day?
Why ask it
It grounds an abstract question about markets in their real work: deals repriced, refinancings pulled forward, redemptions to fund, covenants to renegotiate. It also shows you which parts of finance are cyclical in a way that affects headcount.
What are your clients, or the managers you report to, most worried about this year?
Why ask it
For a banker the reply is about financing and valuations, for a fund manager about performance and withdrawals, for a finance director about cash and costs. It gives you the vocabulary of that seat and something current to mention in an application.
Where is your part of the industry being squeezed on fees or costs right now?
Why ask it
Cheaper index funds, clients doing more in-house and reporting work sent offshore are the kind of pressure people inside a sector will talk about openly. Where the squeeze falls is often where hiring slows, so it is worth hearing before you aim at that seat.
Which parts of your team's work are being automated, and what do juniors do in their place?
Why ask it
Reconciliations, first-draft models and standard reports are common candidates for software, and they were also how juniors used to learn the job. Ask what a new hire does now, since that is the work you would be walking into.
How much contact do you have with regulators, auditors or compliance, and how does it shape the job?
Why ask it
Regulation is a large part of working life in finance and it rarely comes up in careers talks. The rules differ by country and by type of firm, so ask how it works where they are: what has to be approved, recorded or signed off before they can act.
How different is this work at a large firm compared with a small one?
Why ask it
A global bank, a boutique, a family office and a mid-sized company's finance team can all print the same job title. Size changes how narrow the role is, how early you see the whole picture and how much of the training is formal, so ask which they would pick for a first job.
What should I read to follow your corner of finance the way people inside it do?
Why ask it
Every sector has trade press, data releases and newsletters that insiders treat as required reading. A month of it changes how you sound in the next conversation, and telling this person you took the suggestion is an easy reason to write again.
If you were starting now, which part of finance would you go into?
Why ask it
Few people name their own path unchanged, and the reasons are the useful part: where the fees are moving, where headcount is growing, what they wish they had learned earlier. Push for the why if all you get is the name of a sector.
Getting In
How do entry-level seats on your team usually get filled: a graduate scheme, an internship or a referral?
Why ask it
Finance hires in very different ways by sector. Large banks and audit firms tend to run fixed cycles with early deadlines, while funds and company finance teams often hire when someone leaves, so the route decides whether you need a calendar or a contact.
Which qualification actually moved your career, and which one turned out to be noise?
Why ask it
Asking about both sides gets you an honest ranking instead of an endorsement of everything they hold. The value of a CFA, an accounting qualification or an MBA varies sharply by sector and by country, and people inside a sector know which one their employer really counts.
Is your area of finance hiring right now, holding steady or cutting back?
Why ask it
People are usually candid about their own market because it is a fact and not an opinion about you. If the reply is cutting back, ask which neighboring teams are still adding people, since that can change which door you knock on.
What technical skills should I be able to show before I apply for a role like yours?
Why ask it
The real list is usually shorter than the internet suggests: clean spreadsheet work, the three financial statements and how they link, and for some seats a valuation method or two. Ask how they would test it, because that tells you how to practice.
What do interviews for your team test, and where do good candidates slip?
Why ask it
Some teams lean on technical questions, others on a case study, a modeling test or a stock pitch. Knowing the format and the usual stumble turns general preparation into the kind aimed at one door.
With my background, which roles would you aim at first, and which would be a stretch?
Why ask it
Give them thirty seconds on your degree or current job, then ask. A person inside the industry can see adjacent doors you cannot, such as a credit analyst role for an accountant or a treasury seat for an engineer, and will usually be frank about the long shots.
Have you worked with anyone who came into finance from another field, and how did they get in?
Why ask it
A career changer needs a route someone has really taken, not a theory of one. Ask what the person did before, which role they entered through and whether they took a step down in title or pay to make the switch.
What would you do in the next three months if you were in my position?
Why ask it
A time limit forces priorities over a wish list. A useful reply names one or two things, such as an application deadline, a modeling course or a person to meet, and gives you something to report back on.
Would you mind if I sent you one or two follow-up questions by email?
Why ask it
At a finance networking event this is the request to make before you move on, because it earns a card or an address without asking for a favor on the spot. Send the questions within a few days, while the conversation is still fresh for them.
Who else should I talk to, and may I say you suggested them?
Why ask it
Asking permission to use their name turns a vague suggestion into an introduction you can actually act on. It is also the easiest favor they can grant, which is why it belongs at the end of a short first conversation.
Setting up and running the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting the meeting
- 1Ask for fifteen or twenty minutes on a call, and say why you picked them specifically. Requests that could have been sent to a hundred people get answered like they were.
- 2Alumni, family friends who work in the industry, and people two or three years ahead of you tend to reply most readily. Managing directors are the hardest to reach, and their answers are the furthest from the job you would be starting in.
- 3Say plainly that you are not asking for a job. It makes the message easier to answer, because they no longer have to work out whether they can get you hired.
- 4Offer two specific times rather than asking when suits. Finance calendars are dense and open-ended requests slide.
- 5Send a one-line reminder the morning of the call, with an offer to move it if a deal or a deadline has landed on them overnight.
Structuring twenty minutes
Spend two minutes on yourself, not ten
Give a short version of where you are and what you are trying to decide, then stop. The value of the call is in their answers, and people who spend half of it explaining themselves get a polite non-conversation.
Pick five questions, not all of them
Choose one from The Work about the firm's economics or a real day, one from Hours and Pay, one from Moving Up, one about mistakes or pushback, and one closing request from Getting In. Anything more and you will be racing, which is worse than covering less.
Ask the money question in the middle
Questions about pay structure and progression land fine once the conversation has warmed up and badly as an opener. Never ask for their own number; ask how pay is put together at their level, which is a professional question rather than a personal one.
End at the time you asked for
Say that you are conscious of the twenty minutes and ask whether they have time for one more. Most will say yes, and the ones who do not will remember that you noticed.
At a finance networking event
Plan for three minutes, not twenty
At a campus presentation, a society evening or an alumni mixer, each person you meet has a queue forming behind you. Use one or two questions from the Openers group, listen to the whole answer, and keep the questions about pay and promotion for a call.
Find out who is in the room
If the organizer publishes the firms or speakers, read the list and pick the three people closest to the seat you are curious about. A fund analyst, an auditor and a company treasurer can all be at the same event, and a question that suits one will puzzle another, so start by asking which part of finance they are in.
Ask so the whole cluster can hear
Most talk at these events happens in clusters of four or five around one person from a firm. Stand at the edge, wait for a pause, and ask something specific that everyone listening gains from. That is easier on the speaker than pulling them aside, and it is what gets you remembered.
Leave with a way to follow up
Before you move on, ask whether you may email one or two questions, and write down their name, team and one thing they said as soon as you step away. A message the next day that mentions that detail is how a three-minute chat becomes the informational interview you wanted in the first place.
Adjust for where they work
- Investment banking and advisory: ask about deal cycles, staffing, and how work is allocated between teams. Hours and predictability are the live issues.
- Investment management: ask what they are measured against, over what period, and how much of their day is research versus client reporting.
- Private capital: ask about the split between diligence, portfolio work and fundraising, and how carried interest actually vests for someone at their level.
- Corporate finance and FP&A: ask about the close, the planning cycle and how much influence finance has on decisions. The pace and the ceiling are both different from the sell side.
- Accounting and audit: ask about busy season by name, the qualification timetable, and what people move into afterward.
- Do not carry conclusions from one of these across to another. Advice from a hedge fund analyst and advice from a group controller are often opposites and both correct.
What not to ask
- Do not ask for investment advice, a view on a specific stock, or what to do with your own money. Many are not allowed to give it under their firm's rules or their regulator's, which differ by country and by role, and asking suggests you have not thought about their obligations.
- Do not ask about live deals, clients, or anything unannounced. They will decline and the rest of the conversation gets more guarded.
- Do not ask what they earn. Ask how pay is structured at their level instead.
- Do not send a CV in the first message. If the conversation goes well you can ask at the end whether it is worth sending one.
- Do not ask questions their firm's website answers. Read the strategy page and the last annual report before the call.
Afterward
- Reply within a day naming one thing you are going to do differently because of what they said.
- If they suggested someone, contact that person within a week and tell the original contact you did.
- Keep a short note per conversation: sector, hours, pay structure, exit routes, and their honest recommendation. After five or six conversations the pattern across them is more useful than any single call.
- Come back in six months with an update rather than another list of questions. That is what turns a favor into a contact.