been applying to new jobs and i have an interview for a treasury analyst position soon. duties include: - cash management in multiple currencies - managing investments in multiple currencies - financial modeling - financial analysis - a bunch of admin stuff not worth mentioning what should i know going into the interview and how can i prepare? any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Assuming the company is public, study it’s most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings. Pay attention to how much cash it has and how that cash is invested. Make sure you’re familiar with mechanics the types of investments that the company purchases. Try to glean the currencies to which the company is exposed and how those exposures are managed (i.e., natual hedges by matching cash inflows and outflows in the same currency, hedging instruments like forwards and swaps, etc.). Try to be reasonably well-informed on the current exchange rate levels that are important to the Company, and how forex movements over the last year or two have impacted to Co. Good luck.
thanks the company is not public. i actually know nothing about the company as it’s through a recruiter. i’ve been reviewing my derivatives and fx a bit. kinda curious as to what other questions they could ask me.
First off ask the recruiter for more info. She/he works for you, and I would want as much info as possible before going into this interview. First you should be familiar with the company’s business model (what do they sell?) I am a treasury analyst… I manage our FX trading, some cash portfolio stuff and also some ad-hoc projects (cap structure, etc…) I would know about recent events in finance (Credit Markets, Freddie/Fannie, Auction Rate Securities - a lot of treasurers lost their jobs over that) I would also know about the FX markets (look for a prior post I authored on this specific subject) Specifically what your company deals in and types of hedges they might use.( i.e if they import or export to China, Europe etc…) Know about different liquid cash investments that treasuries use (Commercial Paper, etc…) Probably should know other finance type interview questions (Wacc, Capm, etc…)
I used to be a Treasury Analyst… You might check out the Association for Financial Professionals web-site. I dealt almost exclusively with domestic cash management, so not as directly applicable as fxguy, but it wouldn’t hurt to know cash management basics (collections, disbursements, s-term and l-term investing, bank products,etc).
some golden advice here. thanks for the help guys feel free to add anything else that comes to mind
just found out that it’s a large technology solutions company that has business all over the world but mostly in north america. how can i expand on this? steph, checked out the association for financial professionals website. there’s some good information there, thanks.
Slash, One thing to consider is the amount of cash on the books. I’m with a publiclly traded company, and spend most of my time managing the investments on the balance sheet, in additional to consulting on the 401K. If the company is private as you say, and they have a small cash balance (
i was a treasury analyst. u need to be familiar with and interpret the yield curve. have a view about currencies movements, esp those the company’s investments are denominated in. ask about their hedging policy e.g. any interest rate bands (fixed vs floating rate for loans), natural hedging, etc…
I work in Capital Markets at Wal-Mart. I would suggest that you listen to the earnings call from the previous reporting period. I typically base my questions off comments made about the markets. Also, I gear my questions towards specific details of how an instrument works. For example, explain duration and convexity. Best of luck.