Testimonials – Entry Level Roles

Hi Yolanda,

How are you? I wanted to say thank you again to Jeff for the reference check. I got offered the accounts officer position, my role involves payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable and administrative duties. I applied for the job through seek and received a phone interview the following day and was invited to an interview a few days later. The phone interview went for 15 minutes and the actual interview lasted about an hour. For both interviews I was asked behavioural type questions.

The questions that were asked were:
1) What is your greatest weakness?

2) What are your strengths?

3) How would you describe yourself?

4) Where do you see yourself in a few years and what are your long term goals?

5) What is your expected salary?

6) What motivates you?

7) Why are you leaving your current role?

8) Why should we hire you?

9) Do you prefer working in a smaller or larger environment and why?

I know job hunting can get very frustrating but don’t give up. Keep applying and you will get there. In the meanwhile, all the trainings and real hands-on working experience indeed increased my confidence and I found them quite useful trough my job hunting. Also, if you don’t get the job from one place just use it as a learning experience and focus on areas that you think you may not have done well. Make sure you’re prepared for behavioural questions and know your resume well.

Thanks again for all your help and support. Good luck guys

Kind regards,

Alice

Dear Scarlet,

Thanks you so much.

I was asked 4 general questions, like:

1. how I am doing as a team member?
2. what is my strength?
3. how I pay attention to detail?
4. what was my previous responsibility when I was at CA firm and at multinational company in Bangladesh?

They didn’t ask me any technical questions and nothing about reference check. But definitely I appreciate your all training and support for getting in there. In fact last night I recommended Platinum for internship to one my community member.

Thanks once again for all of your assistance. Please convey my thanks to Coco and Jeff for being so helpful to get through in job field.

Also thanks a lot to Michelle.

Kind regards,

Protima

Hi Teresa,

When I moved to Australia,  I’ve already  had more than 7 years overseas experiences in Accounting and I found out it is  not easy  to get a job here in Australia if you don’t have any local experience. Then I decided to join with Platinum and doing Assistant Accountant Training. I would like to thank to Platinum Professional Training Perth for providing exceptional support during my training and also for giving me a good reference.. The Assistant Accountant Training is very useful in giving me practical experiences using MYOB and how to prepare BAS.

After completing the Training, I got many interviews, mostly from Recruitment Agency.

Now, it has been 3 months since I started my first job in Australia. I got part time job (3 days in a week) as Accounting Clerk. I am doing the Senior Accountant Training now and I hope I could get full time job in the near future.

I have to pass two steps until I got the job.

Firstly, The Agency gave me online test which was about Personal Test. Then she interviewed me through skype.

Here are some of the questions asked during my interviews:

1. Tell us about yourself, education, and your previous work.
2. She asked me about my previous job in details.
3. What sort of work do you do at Platinum Accounting and how many hours a week you work there? Try to explain it in details so she will know what kind of jobs that you could do
4. Could you explain to us why you could be the perfect candidate for the role?
5. Explain your strengths that relate to the role.
6. What is your preference job, is that full time, part time or casual and what is your expected salary?
7. Do you have any questions?

Try to ask about the employer, what short of business that the employer do

Secondly, the employer interviewed me through skype and face to face. The questions were quite similar. The Manager explained about the role and she asked me some questions:

1. Why was I interested in that role.
2. How you handle a difficult customers and how to maintain the relationship with the customers?
3. Could you work in under pressure situation?
4. Do you have any questions?

Note: Try to answer the questions that related to the role with STAR way: Situation, Task, Action and Result. For example the questions about how to handle a difficult customer?

I hope this interview feedback will be useful to describe the interview situation.

Kindly Regards,

Yovinda

Hi Teresa,

I was just writing to say thank you for all your help throughout my Internship 1 over the last few months. I graduated from Murdoch at the beginning of this year, and wanted to gain some practical hands on work experience as I was moving to a rural area recently. I had only applied for one graduate position after updating my resume with Teresa, and within 15 minutes of sending the email they replied asking to confirm an interview with me. I was nervous at the beginning because the phone call was with three Managers. But I made sure that I prepared a range of likely questions which helped me alot!!

I prepared questions such as:

• Why do I want to work at the firm?
• What are my weaknesses? (This gets asked a lot. So if you are prepared for the question, you won’t be put on the spot so much)
• Tell me about yourself
• My career plan in the next 5 years
• Why I want to be an accountant
• How I have shown teamwork / leadership in both my working and personal life

I was on the phone to them for over 40 minutes, and all of the questions were personal / behavioural questions. I had written a few personal things about myself on my cover letter to make myself stand out, which they asked a lot of questions about. They focussed more on personal questions and wanted to know who I really was as a person.

Two weeks later I received a phone call saying that I had progressed to the next stage of the interviewing process, which was a video conference at their office in the city – to their Albury office. This time it was with a Principal and the HR Manager. They asked a lot of similar questions to the first interview because it was a different panel of interviewers. This time they also asked me a lot about my internship at Platinum. They also asked me what I would expect to be paid, and I had no idea what to say! I told them I would be happy with whatever they are offering, just because its so hard to secure your first accounting position out of uni. Overall, the interview went really well.

The next day I received a phone call from the HR Manager and they offered me a Graduate Accounting Position in Business Advisory, starting in February. They had just called both of my references and were very impressed. I just wanted to say a huge thank you again to Teresa for all the support she has provided me over the past few months and for giving me such a great reference. I am so excited to begin the new chapter in my life, and start my CA in 12 months!

Tara

Dear Teresa:

I’m very glad to inform you that I am secured as graduate accountant in an accountant company, thanks for all the helps and tips about applying jobs you gave me during the training. After I finished the second internship, I started to apply for job and prepare the very common questions that might be asked in the interview. I had three interviews before I finally got this job.During the interview, Managers did not ask me very technical questions but some general ones:

1. Could you give me five minutes review of yourself?
2. What’s your duty when you were in Platinum firm?
3. What kind of accounting job can you do?
4. What is your strength and shortness?
5. Do you think you are a follower or leader?
6. Do you know how to prepare the financial statements and reports?
7. What is your expected salary?

And I would like to share some of my training experience with other interns. When I were having my first and second internship in Platinum, I went to Platinum office everyday and joined all the training because I know what is the priority for me.To be honest, I’m not smart, so I marked down all the important notes and review it at home. Keep practicing is the only way you can use MYOB proficiently and get the big picture of what accounting job is. The most important benefit I could gain from this training is confidence rather than technical skills. As an international student who has just graduated from uni, lack of working experience and interview skills made me lose confidence to apply jobs and compete with so many job seekers. But after this training and my hardworking, I believe in myself that I had internship experience and all the basic technical skills, which made me perform well in the interview. Also, I found what I had learned in Platinum is extremely helpful for my current job. So interns, please don not lose faith in yourself, I know how hard it is to find an accounting job especially for new immigrants and graduates whose mother language is not English. Equipping yourself with knowledge you attain in Platinum, keep applying, you would definitely be secured an dreamy job and be the next one to share your exciting news with other interns.

Regards,

Flora

Dear all from Platinum team,

I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for supporting me in getting the Graduate Position in one of the mine companies in Australia. I will be joining as a finance graduate next year.

I would like to share my interview experience here and since it was a graduate position I was not asked any technical questions. The common ones were behavioural questions such as

• Why you want to join here
• How you think you can contribute to the company
• Did you have any experience where you had to adopt a new system/task/situation? What was your reaction? How did you manage the situation?
• Did you experience any situation where you had encounter a safety issue? What was the situation? What you did? What did you learn from that?
• Have you experienced a situation where you had to prioritised your tasks? what was the situation and what was the outcome?
• What you think your biggest challenge will be in working here?
• What is your biggest strength?
• How you think you can use your previous experience in your workplace?

I was however, put in a group task before the face to face interview, where I had to read a business decision making situation and comment on the future prospects on that business. Also I had to give a group presentation on the company carter based on a critical situation along with Q&A.

Hope this helps. All the best and thank you all again.

Kind Regards

Shelly

Hi Teresa,

Sorry for the late reply.

I graduated from university recently. As an international fresh graduate, I found it really hard to gain employment in the accounting industry. In order to ensure that I am competent with other job seekers in the market, I took up the Assistant Accountant Training provided by Platinum Professional Training.

During my interview for a Graduate Position, the panel of interviewers asked

1. Describe what do you usually do daily.
2. What is outgoings?
3. Why do you want to work in Audit/ Tax?
4. What do you like to do during your free time?

The interview lasted for 20 minutes. I would like to thank Teresa for guiding me and providing me exceptional support during my training.

Regards,
Elaine

Hi Teresa!

I am happy to inform you that I secured the job as Accounts Payable. Thank you for the great help and support that you and your team provided me during the internship. Thank you for the good reference check as well. The Training and Internship Program has really been helpful for me to gain practical experience.

During the interview, they asked me the following questions:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What attributes you think you have that you can contribute to the company?
3. Tell me about the tasks you performed in your Internship.
4. How do you process payables in your Internship?
5. How do you see yourself in 5 years?

The interview lasted for 30 minutes and I also had a short exam regarding journal entries. The interview session held by Jeff was really beneficial as it gave me helpful tips how to answer interview questions.

Thank you so much Teresa and to the whole team! I really admire your passion to help Interns get into the accounting world.

Kind Regards,

Jennalyn

Hi Scarlet,

I would like to thank you for Scarlet, Jeff and Coco for the intensive training. Finally I secured a bookkeeper position in a beauty industry. Platinum training and internship certainly helped me to build my confidence and face the interview questions with positive attitudes.

Specially I would like to mention, the Senior Accountant training gave me the strength to complete the job tasks successfully in last six weeks. Excel Skills that Jeff delivered to us is more helpful for me to maintain a Sales Register.

At the interview they test my accounting knowledge asking about journal entries to record Revenue and Inventory.

Below are some of the Interview questions relevant for my interview.

Tell me about yourself.

Can you do a BAS and Tax return?

How much is the GST percentage?

How do you handle pressure?

How do you convince your boss if you think you do the right way and he is not?

In five years time where would you like to see you?

Are you a team player?

I wish all the success for Platinum for the future endeavors.

Kind Regards

Chandima

Hi Coco,

Sorry for very late reply, actually did not realize that you have replied me. Accidentally, I saw you email while I was looking for some other emails. I thought that I should drop a few lines for you and to be thankful again. As you know that i got the job and doing great. But I am a bit lack of knowledge when it comes to taxation matter when i deal with ATO. So I am thinking to move to taxation side for a while in future to just get experience in that side and start CPA as well. Anyway, this is my situation at the moment hope you all well at your end. I have drop a few lines about how i got through and that may give some encouragements to new trainees.

I did my Assistant Accountant training program at Platinum Professional Training and soon after enrolled for the program. While i was doing the AA program, I did my very best to get all important points across in all the modules. Some modules I did twice to be more familiar with.  Meantime, I worked hard on improving my excel skills as well. I think that it very important to have advanced excel skill. I get a lot of helps from Coco on that. Consequently, I finished Internship very easily and very quickly.  Then i started to apply jobs and started getting phone interviews. Initially I was a bit hesitant how to respond and then I did an interview session with Coco. Then I knew exactly what they expecting from me. After a few disappointment interviews, finally i got a job with **** after reference check with of Coco.  I had to learn SAP and got training in Singapore.  Then I joined my current place and now i have to do all my assistant accountant duties as same as which i did in internship. To make it more easily, now i am working with MYOB.  I am very thankful to Coco and her well structured Traning and Internship program which gives all practical knowledge is needed in job .

Best Regards,

Fernando

Hi Platinum team,

I am so grateful for the thorough preparation and immeasurable support you have provided me since I joined Platinum.

I am really thankful to Jeff, Coco, Yolanda, Humam, Tyna and all my trainers and supervisors, for all you have done to prepare me in terms of attitude, technical skills and perseverance in the job hunt.

By adapting the interview techniques that were taught in the training sessions, I have been able to land a job after three unsuccessful interviews.

I applied for so many jobs and after not getting any bites on my resume I decided  to join Senior Accountant training. I must say that this SA training has exposed me to the complex world of accounting but I really feel confident when I am at work because of the training I received.

I think that employers who hire interns from Platinum are very lucky because at Platinum we receive such good training such that we are an example to others in our good technical skills and other skills we have learned at Platinum.

During the interview, they asked me to explain the kind of work I do at Platinum. Then they asked me to tell them in depth accounts of my accomplishments. I cannot stress enough how putting your accomplishments on the resume can make the difference. Thank you Jeff and the entire team for helping me with my resume.

Kind regards,

Brian

Dear Salina, Sally, Sherry, Coco and others,

Thank you for all your help and support. You guys have been great help in myself acquiring the ‘Graduate Account’ position with Council. I have been here for the last 5 months and I thought that I have already sent you this letter however, I found out from you that you didn’t receive it.

What I have learned in Platinum has helped me a lot in the last 5 months at work. Wouldn’t have done it without the training and support of Platinum team.

Interview: 3 member panel – I prepared for it for 2 weeks, studied about company in details, such as income, expenses, services, customer, clients, what they do, their mission and vision, who the CEO; councillors; Lord Mayor (Printed out and tagged the folder and took them to the interview – they were impressed).

Studied about 100 interview questions including previous work example for every answer I was about to answer.

At the interview I was confident because I had the technical skills from University and Platinum Professional Training,  I knew a lot about the employer and I had answers and examples for all the interview questions.

Interview Questions = Answers and Examples

• Tell us about your self – in a way they are asking why you like accounting
• What do you know about the Council? Wanted to give back to our community………….
• Have you got any questions for us – I said ‘yes’ I have prepared few questions but I will ask shortly.
• Why do you want this job? Said, this is my dream job working and helping the community that gave so much to me……………….
• Why did you study Accounting? Answer and an example is needed
• Do you work well in team? Answer and an example is needed
• An Accounting question – how, if ever, made any money for previous company? Answer and an example is needed
• Any questions?  What kind of Accounting software are you using? How many people in the team?
• Thank you for your time and send them all a ‘Thank you’ letter.

Special thanks to Sally and Sherry, always willing to help the interns.

Recommend Platinum to anyone who is looking for an Accounting job!

Please acknowledge once you receive this!

Kind regards,

Eugine

Hi Tyna,

I would like to thank the whole team here in Melbourne office for providing exceptional support during my training. I won’t be naming all but it doesn’t mean they are forgotten!

I thank Yolanda for her support and specially her first conversation with me where she explained lot of things about the program and answered my questions which was very helpful.

I thank Yun for her useful feedbacks on my performance based on each tasks. Being able to pinpoint everything made me understand and do better on the next task.

I thank Humam for his excellent trainings which he delivered it in the most understandable way and being able to clarify further the issues raised during the trainings.

Last but not least, above all, I would like to thank Tyna for her support all the way from my first days to last days and specially the reference check. Whenever I had questions and wanted advice, she was there to help and always provided her support. Her reference support was so good that there was no need to call my second referee. And received the offer an hour after the reference check.

Once again, Thank you all and keep up the good work.

Here are some of the questions asked during my interviews:

1. Tell us about yourself, education, work and social life.
2. What is the reason applying for us and why don’t you apply or get a job with Platinum Accounting after your internship?
3. What sort of work do you do at Platinum Accounting and how many hours a week you work there? (would be very helpful if you take some materials from Platinum to the interview eg level 1&2 outline, monthly flow….)
4. What are your goals in 5 years time?
5. What are your strengths? how does your friends describes you? what can you bring to the firm?
6. You should be able to know what is in your resume, the firm you are applying, about the firm you currently working, the skills you have learned (refer to level 1 outline) and try to know the people you are likely to face during the interview.
7. Prepare quality questions to ask them and flow with the conversation. They don’t mind the number of questions. Prepare at least 5 questions because sometimes some your questions will be answered during the conversation.

Here are some questions to ask them:

– Since they have many years of experience in a field (accounting), what is your motivation and what kept you in this field for so long?

– Is there any professional development?

– What is a typical day like?

– Can you show an example of the projects that I will be working on?

– What is expected of me in year 1? and what are the challenges you think i will face in this role?

I hope this would help. Soon or later everyone will eventually find  their desired job. You all need to be patient and never give up.

Kind regards,

John

Hi Lee,

This is an update from the kind reference I was given by Jeff.  I was offered the job with a slightly higher starting salary than I asked for.  I wonder why – I probably asked for too little!

I would like to express my profound gratitude to the whole team at Platinum (Sydney) which includes yourself, Jeff, Coco and Cindy.  I appreciate the extra mile you went for me considering that it was my second reference check.  The employer is an owner-managed business so the manager wanted to know how I coped with the peculiarities of working for an owner-managed business like Platinum Accounting because according to him, it is unique and very different from working in a large corporate.

It started with a phone call from the employer after I applied for the position, asking about my experience at Platinum Accounting which I described.  He was impressed that my internship experience gave me a  well-rounded exposure to the accounting duties for the position he was recruiting.  He also asked other questions about my most recent experience as well as my pre-Australia work experience.  I was invited to the office and we basically went through the same set of questions again!

Anyway, I start the job on Monday. Please wish me luck! Keep up the good work.  I’ll definitely refer my friends to you.

Regards,

Emmanuel

Hi Cindy,

Good news, I got a phone call today from the managing director and he told me that they are happy to offer me the job as an Assistant Finance Officer. He told me that I can start from next week.

I applied for the job through seek and was invited to the interview by a phone call after few weeks, I only had a one round interview with two managers. Interview lasted for about an hour and the questions were  all Behavioural type.

The Questions were very similar as the interview questions we covered in Interview class and they helped me a lot to answer the questions fluently and helped me to be very confident.

At the end of the interview I asked them few questions and tried to leave a good impression by saying that I am very interested in the role and keen to work for your company.

Another important thing which helped me to get the job was that when I came home after the interview I send an email to both interviewers to thank for the interview. In my letter I tried to pick up the most important point about the role and the company and wrote about it by saying “I have a real interest in this area of work. Being the environment of the job very fast pasted made me more interested in the role. I believe my hard working personality would certainly enable me to make a valuable contribution to your Company.”

I would recommend all the trainees to apply the last point during their interview process which would really push one step forward then other candidates.

This is pretty much about my interview experience.

Thank you for all your professional help and support during the training and after the training which really helped me to get this job.

With Kind Regards,

Zane

Some of the questions were:

Would you stay if they contract you?

I said yes and explained them why I want to stay because of my manager and team

How would your manager describe you?

I said team player, responsible, good technical skills in AP/AR, studios very friendly, and would say that I have good time management and organizational skills.

I also said I look after the company’s accounts and help the team with other client tasks during busy period, and we have more than 100 clients and I said i do lots of customer interaction both face to face and by email and phone. the office has very fast passed environment, we start work from 8am to 5pm. I said my manager knows I that I am looking for a job because of my contract is finishing.

There were more questions but these were the most important ones that they might ask you. other responsibilities and achievements are all same and they are in my resume.

Regards,

Zane

Dear Cindy,

I hope you are well.

Thank you so much for the recent help you have given me. It was very very helpful and I appreciate your passion on intern’s success in the workplace. Once again, thank you very much and you helped me to go through difficulties I faced in the workplace.

It is a bit late but I am glad to tell you that I finally secured a junior accountant position at commercial company and I already started to work from two weeks ago. During the program, all the members of the firm, Jeff, Coco, Cindy, Lee and other members contributed their working experience and knowledge for all trainees. It was awesome because as an international student, it was extremely difficult to get those in Australia. Thank you so much for all the support in delivering all aspects of program with MYOB and even in preparing interviews questions and writing Cover Letter and Resume. I should emphasize that the program contents are very helpful for getting a picture for junior accountant and even further career.

I would like to share the questions I was given at the interview.

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What are the daily routine at the Platinum accounting.
3. Do you have any idea of the company?
4. How long have you been in Australia.
5. How do you feel staying in Australia
6. Describe your ultimate goal, 5 years 10 years and how are you going to make it
7. Tell me three good qualities about you with example.
8. What are you going to do if you are blamed with a mistake that you did not make, but your co-workers.

è I just answered that as long as I am not fired with that mistake, I am going to take the blame and I am going to talk with the co-workers so that he or she get to know about it and not make the same mistake again.

9. How do you feel when you are good at your responsibility and work but your co-workers keep making mistake so it affects team`s performance.

è I told them that even though I did not make anything wrong but as a team we are failing to achieve our goal and my responsibility should include helping co-workers.

10.What is my hobby and if you have to work overtime sometimes, then you may not having time on your hobby much, how do you feel and the way of making balancing between my work and life.

11.What is BAS and how you are going to do it in MYOB

12. What is bank reconciliation and how are you going to perform it
13. Describe the function of accounts payable and receivable, with aged reports.
14. Rate you excel skill.
15. Do you have some questions about the position

è I asked if this position is newly created because, in this case, I thought if it is new one, my responsibility can be changed in near future.

I cannot remember all the questions but those are pretty much everything. Prepare questions about yourself and behaviour questions because it seems all interviews I attended pretty much care about if I am a team player or not. Technical questions about MYOB or BAS, you can get the clear picture along with the program.

Actually I attended also in the Senior Accountant training program, in this program, Jeff is going to tell his experiences with analysing financial data and you can improve your excel skills. The training can help us if you have interest in developing career in commercial area as you are mostly expected to write a report which requires sufficient analysing skills. People may feel that the this SA program is not suitable for people trying to get a job at junior level but I disagree with that, because what I felt was that It is good to get a detail picture of analysing and I believe it is better to have advanced level of accounting experience in early time so that you can take your future career more seriously to be prepared well. You may think it is not worth it but the truth is, it is.

Many thanks for Jeff, Coco, Cindy and Lee. They are very supportive and whenever I have some questions they tried to help me have understood.

Regards,

James

Dear Ms. Lee,
Thank you very much for providing a positive reference check about me which was very helpful and I appreciate your kind assistance.

I am glad to inform you that I finally secured an Accounts Clerk Position at a commercial company. During my internship program at Platinum Accounting, all members of the firm – Jeff, Cindy, Lee and other members contributed their working experience and knowledge to all trainees. It was a great experience because as an international student, it was extremely difficult to get a job in Australia. I appreciate all the support you all provided me in delivering all aspects of accounting with MYOB and preparing for the interview questions to take on future job opportunities :

Tips for Job Applicants :-

Read the job description carefully before applying for the role. Understand what does the potential employer want from you.

1. If your skill sets match with the job requirements, ONLY then apply for the job. Do not apply for a large number of jobs, if they are not relevant to your experience and/or skills.
2. Make sure you have all your work experience, achievements and qualifications noted on your resume. Your resume should resemble YOU as a person.
3. Before attending the interview, work on the SWOT analysis. Define what your strengths (4-5) are with some good examples. Nobody can ever be perfect, so, don’t feel shy of putting down your weaknesses (1-3). You may even want to tell them how you are working at improving your weaknesses.
4. Day before the interview, read about the organization and try and learn more about the person interviewing you. Google, LinkedIn are always our trusted friends
5. Demonstrate some good work-related examples to prove your points as this adds value to what you are talking.
6. Lastly, be prepared to ask some good questions to the interviewer (1-2).

Many thanks to Jeffrey, Cindy and Lee who were always very supportive and helped me understand easily whenever I experienced any difficulties.
Best Regards,

Ronell

Hi Scarlet,

I’d like to share a news of being selected as an Accountant for N** B*****.

I’d like to say big thank to whole Platinum accounting team. As the experience and reference really helped me to secure a job. Also, the tips ,such as with my CV, I got from time to time was great help during my job hunt.

The first thing they notice was my Resume and they said its quite impressive during my interview so thank you Scarlet.

Following were the questions that they asked me during interview. I had two rounds of interviews. One with HR and other one with the manager.

In my First rounds they were asking following questions :

• Why I want to be an accountant?
• About strength and weakness?
• Tell me about the tasks I perform at Platinum Accounting?
• How I tackle conflict situation?
• What is my expected salary?
• They explain the role to me and asked if I have any questions?

In my second round:

It was more about my current and past roles. They wants to know more about me.

Thank you once again to the whole team and helping me to start my career.

Regards,

Jess

Hi Teresa

I have been selected as a part time book-keeper for a company who develops and sales houses.

Firstly, I would like to thank the Platinum Professional Training Perth team.

My main problem when searching for a job was that I had no local experience. I came across Platinum 2 months ago and got some further knowledge with skills of how to use software’s such as MYOB. I was called for an interview and finally managed to secure this position.

Some of the questions that they asked me during the interview were:

• Tell me about yourself.
• What are some of the tasks I carry out at Platinum accounting?
• Is it a paid/unpaid job?
• What are some of the common errors that I have made while working at Platinum accounting?
• What are the goals I want to achieve in 5 years time?
• What is my expected salary?
• Some of the questions were irrelevant to accounting. For example, how I would deal with aggressive customers?

Thank you once again for helping me start my career.

Regards,

Yamini

Dear Lee

Sorry for the late reply and thank you very much for helping me to gain the real world working experience.

During the interview with my HR manager and Financial Controllor, I was asked for the following questions:

• What are my primary responsibilities and duties at work.
• What made me study Accounting and why I was trying to get into the accounting field
• What my expectations are in 5 years time.
• They also asked me about my previous working experience, which was completely irrelevent to accounting..
• They asked me about my understandings of the company and they asked my thoughts about working in the firm.
• What were my off-work curricular. I was very honest about this question, I told them I pretty much did nothing for my extracurricular. And surprisingly they said: welcome to the corporate world.
• What is my expectation regards to the salarys
• Other training and studies in terms of accounting.

It was a fun interview, we actually talked about lots of things that are beyond the scope of work.
I reckon the most important tip that I would encourage everyone to do during the interview is: be positive, stay calm and show them your best.
Thank you once again for helping me getting my career started!

Sincerely Yours

Jonathan

Dear Platinum,

I am pleased to inform that I have secured a contractual accountant position with *** financial. Although the contract is till the end of October but it is a good begining to my career in Adelaide.

The interview that I gave was not that difficult and consisted of general questions about my experience and qualification and also about the nature of work I perform at Platinum Accpunting.

I am thankful to Platinum for giving me the confidence and also the training that helped me secure this role.

I will stay in contact with you and will let you know if I may require the experience certificate. If I am released in the end of October then I will complete the remaining 3 months of training with Platinum Accounting after that.

Thank you so much and regards,

Shayan

Dear Platinum

Here is my notes on interview.

When I received the call on Monday it was about 9.30AM.  I was asked if it is possible for me to come for an interview at 2.00PM.  As I live at B*** M**** it was not easy. We arranged interview two days after.  This really helped. As I was busy with other assignments I still had one all day to prepare for interview.

When I arrived to the firm, the place looks more like an art studio than a law firm. I was surprised.  The place was spacious and has a beautiful vibes!

The interview  was a panel set-up with an Accountant (resigning after 3 years and whose position I applied for), a Paralegal and a Principal.  Principal joined in bit late, so we revisit few of the questions.  Interviewers were exceptionally friendly and nice. I prepared for many technical questions. However, there were hardly any technical question in the interview. There was one competency based question.  This question was related to “ability to think outside the box”.  That’s it!!

We had quite a few funny moments. On one occasion, Principal asked me; “we are friendly but sometimes we get very noisy and loudly. You seems to come from a peaceful, meditative place. How would you coup up with us?”  I said: “although, I have not added on to my profile but I do have experience working with intellectual disable children..” We all had a big crack on this.

One more was: “What do you know about our firm?”

I said: “I suppose, you know more about it than I do!”

For some mysterious reason, it felt more like an informal chat after this!  Here are the main questions that I can recall:

1. Tell us about yourself.
2. Why did you move to Australia?
3. Why did you apply for this job?
4. Please explain your experience with professional firms.
5. Varieties of client that I work with.
6. What is involve in Xero Certification?
7. Do I have experience managing the Trust accounting?
8. Where do I want to be in five years in terms of my career?
9. Why I am not interested working for CA firms, anymore?
10. Most challenging project I worked on.
11. Is it not inconvenient for me to travel two hours for job?
12. What types of monthly reports you prepare?
13. BAS lodgement in Xero.
14. Is there any policy difference between NZ and Australian accounting standards? (not 100% sure what they asked, but gently directing to effectiveness of my NZ experience in Australia.)
15. One question regarding effective communication.

Big big thanks to Cindy, Jeff, Lee and PA team for their support!!

Regards
Nilesh

—————————————————

Dear Lee and Platinum Team!!

To share a good news with you. I just received a confirmation call that I am offered Head of Accounts position for xxxxx Legal in the city. This is a part-time role, 2-3 days a week. It was my first job-interview in Australia! Thank you Lord and  thank you Platinum Accounting Team. Yes, I like to join tax training, however, I would wait until July. As for now, the priority is to take charge of this new role.  Once again many thanks to you, Cindy and Platinum Team!
Regards

Nilesh

Hi there,

Sorry for the late reply and thanks again for the great reference check.

In the interview, they asked me several questions as follows:

1. Tell me about yourself. Very common one, everyone should know how to answer this question.

2. What is your daily routine at platinum Accounting.

3. How long have you been in Australia and why you choose accounting as your major?

4. Tell me three good qualities about you. Provide example of each good qualities. You should prepare some stories to support your words.

5. They also asked me about some part time job experience during my study and what I got benefit from that.

6. How to manage your work according to the priority.

7. What benefit do you think you can bring to our company?

8. How do you know about our company and the health care industry?

Always do enough research about the company before you go to an interview.

9. Do you have other questions to ask? I asked two questions related to the position and the company.

Hope this can help. Thank you again.

Kind Regards

Doris

Dear Platinum,

As you are aware I was successful in obtaining a graduate position at a top Australian manufacturing company before the Christmas break. My position deals directly with managing the company’s expenses. I am extremely happy to have achieved this position and I hope this email can inform and help other interns who are looking to secure a grad position.

The grad program for my company consisted of three main stages: a phone interview, assessment centre and face to face interview.

In the phone interview they asked general questions about my university studies and they also wanted to find out what I knew about the company. Speaking about my university studies was fairly straightforward but when it came to speaking about the company my advice to interns is that before a phone interview they should make sure they have done some research on the company. From this research interns should be prepared to talk about their general understanding of what the company does, the company’s clients, the company’s vision and values ect. (candidates may also be required to demonstrate what they know about the company in the face to face interview).

The next stage was the assessment centre where all remaining candidates met at the office and were put into small groups for an activity that was assessed. The activity was not accounting related and just involved your general knowledge (e.g. giving a response to a hypothetical scenario). While it is important to try and obtain an end result that best meets the task requirements, I felt what was more important to the assessors was the way you interact with your group members, alongside your contributions to the task. I find this stage could be quite challenging if you do not have much experience working with people you have never met before. Therefore in this stage I feel teamwork and leadership skills are the most important.

My advice for this stage is to always try and contribute something to your group, monitor the time (you have a limited amount of time so the assessors can see how you work under pressure) and to listen to and acknowledge your team members’ suggestions. Assessors will not like it if you do not speak much but at the same time the assessors will not like it if you are too bossy/controlling. Therefore I recommend interns should try to best maintain a balance of not being too quiet but also not being too dominant.

In the face to face interview stage the interview started off asking about myself and my experiences, my most favourite and least favourite job and my most favourite and least favourite university subject. Then they went into behavioural interview questions that included a time where I showed attention to detail and a time where I had to learn on the fly. When answering the behavioural questions my advice is to use the STAR method taught in university, and in the interview guidance session. Many examples of behavioural questions can be found on the internet which I used to practice but I do not recommend memorising answers. I find it is better to be familiar with the many experiences you have had at your work, university and extracurricular activities so you can aim to apply these to any questions. This is a technique was covered and I found this interview guidance session to be very helpful in preparation for this stage. If interns are struggling to come up with experiences I find that there are a lot of situations from the internship that can be used to respond to the questions.

In my interview there were also no technical questions and I feel being a graduate position the interview panel did not expect candidates to have a great deal of experience in the accounting field. The interview panel seemed to be impressed that I took the initiative to build on my accounting skills by taking on an internship at Platinum Accounting while studying and they were also impressed by my extracurricular activities, involvement in sport and volunteer work I have done. Therefore when applying for a grad position my advice is that if you have had other experiences that may not be accounting related, but involve certain skills such as team work, problem solving and leadership, it is beneficial to include these experiences in your resume and application.

 I wish all my fellow interns the very best in their job hunting. All of the interns I have had the privilege to meet were extremely friendly and supportive. It is great to see Platinum has such a positive work environment. Many thanks for all the fantastic work put into the internship.

Kind regards

Steve

Hi

Wish you happy New Year. This is Cindy from brisbane. I just got an offer letter from the employer. The position I applied for is Account Assistant position. I already had the interview with the Agent. I passed first, second round of profiling process.

Now I m writing to share some interview questions which I was asked.

Could you give me a time when you have disagreement with your supervisor?

Have you ever had a time when you cannot get along with your coworker?

Give me an example that you have to dealwith a difficult customer?

What interest you most for this position?

What part do you really enjoy about working in a team? What part you dont enjoy?

What do you enjoy most of all the job duties in your resume?

If you cannot match the transaction during the reconsiliation, what will you do?

Where would you see your self in next 5 years?

How could you cope with the changes in the workplace?

They also asked about the business and structure of the business you worked for.

I wish those questions will help other people to have a good preparation of their interviews. Thank you Platinum, I really appreciate your guidance and help.

Regards,

Cindy

Dear Platinum,

Did you have a good weekend?  Can you believe i just conducted an interview on Sunday and i got an offer from it? Please let me share a story with you……

On 8th March, i posted my resume from”SEEK.COM.AU” regarding an assistant accountant role, then the following day the employer asked to have an intervew on 11th March. The interviewer has asked me following questions:

1) What is your nationality?
2) How do you lodge BAS and have ever filled up the BAS return form?
3) How much do you know about Payroll and Payroll tax?
4) How is your skills regarding MYOB operation?
5) Why should i offer you this job?

Then on Saturday morning, i received his phone call and he ask me to attend interview again on Sunday. When i arrived his office, there was another interviewer, she has asked me following questions:

1) What is your ambition towards your life?
2) Why should i hire you?
3) Are you going to study CPA and how long does it take?

After she went through all the candidates, she offered me a job and sent the employment contrct inmediatly to my email. I was quite surprised that it seemed quite easy…..
then i have reviewed all the reasons why they have most preference on me than others:

1) Be patient, always have faith that sooner or later i wil get an accountant job, ” Where there is a will, there is a way!”
2) Always try to bring out my best including, practice all the technichal skills have learnt from Platinum training session ( exremely usefull),
do rearch about the company’s profile as much as posible, prepare all the questions interviewer may ask as much as posible, always     present well when attend interview!
3) Most importantly, i must appreciate all the trainers assistance from Platinum, you has just offered me so much! The trainings i have conducted which are level 1, Internship and Interview, all of these are extrmely usefull !!!!! Also, i am convinced that your  professional manner always makes me very impressive, and i believe i must be influenced by your great attitude and professional manner !

Again, thank you very much and also i wish all the trainees can receive very good luck during their job hunting.

Best regarding,

Rose

Hi Platinum,

Really want to share this exciting moment with you.finally i got job offer from company i applied for the role of Accounts Officer.starting work there from Monday.

I want to thank you for everything,your training,your guidance,your support and reference check.i am sending you my interview detail so it can help other trainees as well.

 i had one phone interview,two face to face interview and finally they said me to come for trial approximately for 2 hours.

 1st round was phone interview

1.How long u been working with Platinum?

2.what do you do there?

3.Do you have admin experience as well?

and she said if i will be successful for next stage i will get call in next 24 hours.Finally i successful and went for face to face interview.

2nd round with Business operational Manager.

1.Tell me about your self.

2.Tell me about your role in Platinum.

3.What do you do on daily basis?

4.where you used to work before?

5.She asked me some personal questions like my background,how long you been here.

6.Any question for me.

then she told me about company and my role,and said Senior Accountant is on holiday coming back next week,so when you can come for another interview with her in next week?

3rd round with Sr. Accountant

1.Again whats you do in your current role?

2.What is cost center analysis?

3.How do you handle pressure?

4.whats your expectation from this role?

5.few questions from my previous job.

Finally she said you are amazing can you come for trial (they wanted to see how comfortable i am with this role) and  after Trial they said they have few more candidates and they will let me know by tomorrow and  next morning finally they said we  are going to check your references.And finally offered me job.Guys it took my 2 weeks quite long time from first round to final trial.it looks funny now but that time i was nervous,but you have been there for me and even said if i need help i can ring any time,soooooooo supportive.

Many Many thanks Platinum.

I will come and see you to thank you personally.

Regards,

Amita

Hi there

Sorry for delay in providing feedback

I am quite busy with learning how to process purchase orders, signed codes invoices with SAP and send out invoices for approval for payments at this moment. I am responsible for the basket R-Z, which is the one getting much more invoices than any other baskets at daily basis. Although my teammates help me to process some invoices, there are almost 300 invoices accumulated in my basket so far. Hopefully, I can pick up my speed.

Thank you very much for your reference, which I believe was the key for me to secure this position. On my first day there, my manager mentioned that I was the person who would like to figure out things myself…according to the references.

many thanks and Keep in touch.

Jia

Hi

After following trial and error method to find an accounting job for a while, I have landed myself in a ” Allround office assistant role” (voluntary) in a medium size(15 employees) firm that specializes in accounting, wealth management, advisory and strategy. The name of the firm is ****** Financial Services. The reason I chose to work with them on a voluntary basis is because I believe that if I spend time with them I will be able to learn much more than accounting, which is the way to the future. Also there is a chance to get permanent and paid if I can show my calibre.

My interview was very informal and lasted about 20 minutes. It was taken by the M.D and Chief accountant. They didn’t ask me for reference because I was able to convince them about my knowledge of previous work-ex and accounting concepts.

Your tips and suggestions were helpful.

regards

Sugam

Dear Platinum,

The HR lady rang me & said I secured a position as Accounts Clerk (6-month contract) role at ****** law firm.
Thanks for your reference as they seem to be impressed with that.
Now, I want to share my experience with fellow trainees.

The interview took 1 hr in total which involves 30min test & 30min face to face interview.
30 min test is 20 MCQs on accounting literacy & 10 MCQs english grammar test.

3 people interviewed me at the same time but I tried to control my nerves & take situation as I’ve got nothing to lose.
I tried to sound confident & keep smiling all the time.
The question they asked are very common questions such as

1.) What do I know about the firm?
2.) How many employees do we have?
3.) tell us about Platinum, the responsibilities etc?
4.) why I left Platinum?
5.) what else do I do apart from working as accountant?

Thanks heaps for giving me such support & I’ll always remember Platinum as the starting point of my accounting career.

The role seems to be tough but I’ll try my best to get through & let’s see the outcome.

Good luck to everyone & to me as well.

CHEERS!!!

Regards,
Zahair

Hi there,

Thank you for your reply.

They told me the reference check was ok, and they gave me the role.

I will start the job next Monday.

It was a really good memory and training I got at your firm.

Please bring my gratitude to all the trainers.

They told me they still need another referee, so I just gave them your email.

I think they will just contact you through the email.

Thank you once again.

Frank