A resume can tell you where a Controller candidate has worked. It can't tell you how they'll handle your close process, your team, or a disagreement with ownership. These questions are built to surface that.
Technical Questions
- Walk me through your month-end close process and one specific change you made to shorten it
- Describe a multi-entity or multi-location consolidation you've owned — what made it complicated
- What ERP or accounting systems have you implemented, migrated, or meaningfully customized
- How do you approach inventory valuation or cost accounting if the business has physical inventory
- Tell me about the most complex audit finding you've had to resolve
Leadership Questions
- How large a team have you directly managed, and how did you structure it
- Tell me about a time you had to have a difficult performance conversation with someone on your accounting team
- How do you decide what to delegate versus what you keep ownership of yourself
- Describe how you've presented financials to ownership or a board — what questions came up
Judgment and Culture Questions
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision from the CEO or ownership on a financial matter — how did you handle it
- Describe a situation where you had to deliver bad financial news
- What would you do in your first 90 days if you inherited a close process that consistently ran late
The best signal usually isn't the answer itself but how specific it is — vague answers to these questions are a bigger red flag than an imperfect technical answer to a narrow scenario.
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