Corporate Finance
6 budgeting questions of the kind asked in corporate finance interviews. Each carries a model answer, the concepts a complete response must hit, and graded feedback on your own attempt.
A common first-round FP&A question testing whether candidates understand the planning cadence.
What is the difference between a budget and a forecast? If revenue is tracking below plan in April, which number should management use to run the business?
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?
A foundational question for explaining operating leverage and building downside scenarios.
Explain fixed, variable and semi-variable costs. Why does the distinction matter when revenue falls below plan?
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?
Common in FP&A and corporate strategy interviews.
Compare zero-based budgeting with incremental budgeting. When would you implement ZBB, and what typically goes wrong?
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 contractors, and operations…
Write your answer, get it graded on technical accuracy, completeness and communication, and see exactly which mechanic you missed.
Firm names indicate where a question type is commonly reported in interviews. They are not sourced from, endorsed by, or affiliated with the firms named.