24 questions reported in Salesforce interviews, organised by the group that asks them. Every question carries a model answer and graded feedback on your own attempt.
Questions
Easy · Medium
Hard
Model builds
Built in the spreadsheet grid
Strategic fit, synergy underwriting, dis-synergies and post-close ownership. 11 questions
A first-round corporate development question testing whether a candidate starts with strategy rather than a database filter.
Your CEO asks for a list of acquisition targets to strengthen the company's enterprise software offering. How would you build an initial target screen, and what would you avoid treating as a hard…
A first-round corporate development question testing whether a candidate understands where analyst work fits in a live acquisition.
Walk me through a corporate acquisition from the first strategic idea to post-close integration. Where does corporate development add value at each stage?
A practical first-round question for candidates who may support early-stage deal execution.
What is a letter of intent in an acquisition, and what key points would you expect it to cover?
Distinguishes a proactive corp dev function from one that reacts to banker calls.
How would you build an acquisition pipeline for a company that has done two deals in five years and wants to do two a year?
Asked to test whether you understand the role you're applying to.
You've done M&A at a bank. How is corporate development different, and what would you have to do differently?
A live-deal case that tests whether an analyst can triage issues rather than produce an unranked diligence list.
You have three weeks left in diligence. Revenue is concentrated in two customers, EBITDA contains large adjustments, and the target's core software is built on a third-party licence. How would you…
A deal-team workflow question for an analyst asked to turn an early indication of interest into an efficient diligence plan.
Your company has signed an NDA for a potential acquisition and receives access to a virtual data room. How would you structure the first request list and manage it so that it helps a decision rather…
An offer-ready integration case testing how a candidate makes a recommendation with incomplete information and competing priorities.
You are acquiring a software company. Finance wants to migrate billing on day one to capture synergies, while the target's sales leader says any billing disruption could jeopardise its ten largest…
Integration is where acquisitions actually fail, and corp dev interviews probe it directly.
Your company has just signed a deal to acquire a competitor half its size. You have three months to close. What do you do in that window, and what are the first 100 days after?
A corporate-development analyst must protect deal value and clean-team discipline when new customer information arrives before signing.
You are supporting the acquisition of a workflow-software company. A confidential customer call creates both valuation and antitrust-process issues. Work through the updates and send the CEO a…
A branching corporate-development negotiation covering price, certainty and integration risk.
You lead corporate development for a strategic buyer. Two weeks before signing, the target misses earnings and its largest customer delays renewal. Choose the response at each negotiation turn and…
Driver-based forecasts, variance analysis and forecast accuracy. 9 questions
A core planning exercise because people costs are the largest controllable expense at many companies.
Walk me through how you would build a headcount and compensation plan for the next fiscal year. What errors would make the plan unreliable?
Asked to assess whether a candidate can design a useful forecasting process rather than simply update a template.
What is a rolling forecast, and how would you run a monthly forecasting cadence without creating a burdensome process for the business?
FP&A cases often test whether a candidate can connect an operating miss to liquidity before it becomes urgent.
A company has $30m of cash and forecasts $3m of monthly burn. A downside case could increase burn to $5m after three months. How would you build and use the scenario?
Central to FP&A interviews. They want process, not spreadsheet skills.
Compare top-down and bottom-up forecasting. How would you build a revenue forecast for a business with 40% recurring and 60% transactional revenue, and how do you handle the fact that forecasts are…
The recurring deliverable of an FP&A team, and interviewers ask for the method.
Revenue came in $4m below budget for the month. How do you explain it, and what does a useful explanation contain?
FP&A interviews test influence without authority as much as modelling.
A business unit leader wants to hire 20 people. Your analysis says the business case doesn't support it. You have no authority over them. What do you do?
A practical case for FP&A teams supporting sales-led businesses.
Sales leadership proposes hiring 20 account executives. Each costs $180,000 fully loaded, takes six months to ramp, and reaches $800,000 of annual quota at 75% attainment. How would you assess the…
FP&A at a software company is largely metric definition and defence.
You've joined a SaaS company as its first FP&A hire. The board wants a metrics pack. What goes in it, and what definitional traps do you avoid?
A business-partnering case for an FP&A candidate asked to preserve a cash target while making real capacity trade-offs across functions.
Mid-year, the CFO needs $12m of incremental cash savings while preserving the product launch scheduled for the fourth quarter. Sales asks to keep all planned hires, product asks to protect…
Adjacency analysis, competitive response and where advantage actually comes from. 2 questions
Strategy teams ask this to see whether candidates can connect operating levers to financial outcomes.
Build a KPI tree for a subscription business that wants to grow revenue faster.
Asked when companies have slowing core growth and management wants a second engine.
A mature business can invest $100m in its core product or in a new adjacent product. How do you decide?
Project selection, returning capital and measuring per-share value. 2 questions
A common planning-team question when an executive asks to annualise a strong or weak recent month.
Your CEO says, “April revenue was $12m, so we are on a $144m run rate.” How would you respond?
A hard strategic finance case where the analyst must compare a corporate development opportunity with an internal investment plan.
A company can build a capability internally for $60m over three years or acquire it today for $180m. How would you decide?
Write your answer, get it graded on technical accuracy, completeness and communication, and see exactly which mechanic you missed.
Company tags reflect where a question type is commonly reported in interviews. They are not sourced from, endorsed by, or affiliated with Salesforce.