EMC Senior Financial Analyst Interview

Interview Details – The interview process consisted of an initial phone screen with the recruiter, phone interview with the hiring manager and 2 sets of onsite round of interviews. I had applied online to their job posting and the recruiter reached out for an initial phone screen. After about a week, I was scheduled to speak with the hiring manager for about 45 minutes. The phone interview was basically to learn about my work experience, background and details around the specific job position/team at the company.

I did a follow-up with the recruiter on my phone interview, and I was informed that the hiring manager liked my candidacy and wanted to invite me for the first round of onsite interviews. The first onsite consisted of 45 minute interviews with 4 people (hiring manager, 2 co-workers and business partner supporting that role). Most of the interviews were situational (case study types) and consisted of asking me about my previous work experience and how I would be a good fit to the team. There were a couple of technical questions around corporate finance/FP&A (P/L basics and how different industry have different P/L structures etc.), budgeting and planning process, and some basic accounting knowledge questions. The interviewers were knowledgeable and seemed genuinely interested in talking and learning about me.

After about a week or 10 days, I was contacted by the recruiter for another (final) round of onsite interviews. It was for 1.5 hours (2 people each for 45 mins). I met with the HR person, and my hiring manager's boss. The HR person asked very general, basic HR questions about why I want to work for EMC, what are my long term goals, what interested me particularly about this opportunity etc. The final interview with the manager of the hiring manager was a little more tough. The questions included more on my decisions made in the past (movement from one job to another and what motivated me to make the change), what kind of value-add or contributions I could bring to role, some general finance and behavioral questions as well.
I felt the interviews went great, and got a similar response from the recruiter and team (when I send out thank you notes). I was contacted by the recruiter after a few days saying I was one of the top candidates and we discussed about salary and benefits. A few days later the recruiter contacted me and came back with a lame excuse that they were still considering others for the role and the hiring manager wanted to continue interviewing others. I wasn't offered any other explanation or feedback for my rejection after reaching the final round. Nevertheless, it was overall a good experience interviewing with EMC.