Kingston Smith interview questions

The interview process consisted of two stages. The first interview was with the staff partner, and the other, with the managing partner. During the first interview, the staff partner also shared the internal appraisal procedure.

The entire process is made up of five stages: application, verbal and numerical tests, phone interview, assessment centre, and finally a partner interview. Application I applied online via the Moore Kingston Smith website in early August. It was the typical application process of filling in information and then answering some background and motivational questions. Put the effort in here to answer these. Verbal and Numerical Tests Ten days or so after my application had been submitted and accepted I was invited to complete online verbal and numberical reasoning tests. The verbal was fine but the numerical felt like I didn't have enough time to complete everything so focus on picking up the pace a bit. As always, do some percentages practise first. Phone Interview About a week after I completed the numerical and verbal reasoning tests I received an invitation to ook a phone interview with HR. The phone interview took place roughly a month later, with questions like "Why do you want to work at Moore Kingston Smith?", "Why a career in chartered accountancy?", "Working at Moore Kingston Smith, what do you imagine you’ll be doing?", "What attributes should an accountant have?", and "What do you know about the ACA?". The interview lasted for about 10 minutes, and at the end I was immediately invited to an assessment centre. Virtual Assessment Centre The assessment centre took place roughly a week after the phone interview. It all took place via Zoom due to COVID-19. It started with an introduction to the AAT and ACA schemes and then we all introduced ourselves and told everyone something about ourselves that displayed problem-solving and teamwork (in non-COVID times they would have done a team-building exercise). After this there were more numerical and verbal reasoning tests which you were required to pass to continue - if you did not pass you were told via phone call and let go after completion. We then presented a 5 minute SWOT analysis on a company of our choice (I would recommend volunteering to go first) to others in the group, two members of HR and two managers. We were asked questions by the managers after our presentation about why we chose the company and what we thought about how they were going to deal with competition and COVID etc. They seemed to want a good demonstration of business awareness and research as well as confidence and communication skills. Finally there was a HR competency-based interview for 30-45 minutes. This was pleasant as while there were competency-based questions such as "Tell me about a time you had to build a team relationship", there were also others about why you chose your A-levels and degree as well as just chatting and getting to know you. Partner Interview Several days after the assessment centre I was emailed inviting me to a (virtual) interview with a partner at the branch that I was applying for. The interview was very nice; this was much more about getting to know me and my motivations. I was again asked about my degree as well as my hobbies and motivations. The questions to me only lasted about 20 minutes, with the rest of the 45 minute interview being the partner answering my questions (make sure you have at least three prepared). I was then phoned a couple of day after the partner interview with an offer, which I enthusiastically accepted.