Pre-Interview Cheatsheet
Finance Analyst / FP&A Analyst — Confidence Cheatsheet
A printable, focused refresher tuned for Finance Analyst / FP&A Analyst. Open the sections that matter to you and walk in confident.
Tuned for Finance Analyst / FP&A Analyst · Business, Finance & Analytics > Finance & AccountingRefresh Right Now The 60-second mental warm-up before you start.
- Know financial statements, budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, scenario analysis and management reporting.
- Understand revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, EBIT, net income, capex, working capital and free cash flow.
- Be ready to build or explain a forecast driver model: volume, price, utilization, headcount, churn, cost inflation.
- Refresh valuation basics: DCF, multiples, WACC, terminal value, sensitivity tables, payback, NPV and IRR.
- Strong finance answers combine numbers, assumptions, risk and decision impact.
Core Vocabulary Terms interviewers expect you to use precisely.
- Forecast: best estimate of future performance based on drivers and assumptions.
- Run-rate: current performance annualized; useful but dangerous if seasonality or one-offs exist.
- Free cash flow: cash generated after operating needs and investment; not equal to EBITDA.
- NPV: present value of future cash flows minus initial investment.
- Sensitivity: testing how output changes when key assumptions move.
Formulas & Frameworks The mental models that organise your answers.
- Variance logic: separate price, volume, mix, timing, FX and one-off effects.
- Forecast logic: historical baseline -> business drivers -> assumptions -> scenarios -> review -> update.
- Investment logic: strategic fit, cash flows, NPV/IRR, risk, sensitivity, implementation capacity.
- Board-style answer: headline, key drivers, risk, recommendation, next action.
Likely Interview Prompts Questions you should be ready for.
- How would you forecast next year’s revenue?
- Explain EBITDA, EBIT and free cash flow.
- How do you investigate a budget variance?
- What makes a good financial model?
- How would you present bad financial news to management?
Red Flags To Avoid Common answers that lose interviews.
- Using overly precise numbers without explaining assumptions.
- Confusing accounting profit, EBITDA and cash.
- Ignoring working capital and timing.
- Building complex models that nobody can audit.
- Only reporting variance, not explaining the driver.
What Sets You Apart Signals that move you from competent to memorable.
- Can build clean models with separate inputs, calculations and outputs.
- Knows how to challenge assumptions diplomatically.
- Connects finance to operations: capacity, pricing, productivity, churn, utilization.
- Uses sensitivity analysis to avoid false confidence.
30-Second Confidence Reset Anchor sentence to read just before you walk in.
A good FP&A answer is not just 'the number changed'; it is 'the number changed because of these drivers, here is the risk, and here is what we should do next.'