Priyanka Rana

Informal Interview with Financial Analyst

Working as a financial analyst for a well-known company has been my dream goal, and
this assignment has proved a perfect networking opportunity to visit and interviewing one of the
financial analysts in the industry. Having an informal interview with the financial analyst of
Xcom Company was a wonderful experience to me. Xcom is a multinational testing and
measurement company based in Japan, which has been in industry for over 100 years. Rebecca
Bruner is serving Xcom as the financial analyst of AWU division which contains over 400
employees. I contacted Rebecca through email, and she provided a quick positive response,
which was very encouraging for choosing her for this assignment. We schedule a meeting on
October 15th, 2013, and I interviewed her for learning more about the financial analyst position.
In this essay, I am going to talk about her role in Xcom, tips and advice regarding financial
analyst position that I received from her, and the positive reflection of this learning opportunity
on my future.
I reached sharp on time on the day my meeting with Rebecca was scheduled. Once I
arrived and finished the visitors formalities of the Xcom, Rebecca helped me to get in. I liked
the company environment, and it felt friendly and a safe place to work for. Rebecca had already
reserved a meeting room for us. I found Rebecca as a very active and intelligent professional
with exceptional communication skills. I felt very comfortable talking with her and asking
questions. She provided all answers to my satisfaction. The experience of interviewing her was
very unique, and it left positive impacts on me.
I am happy that I found Rebecca for this assignment as she was very informative and
helpful. Rebecca has a bachelors degree in Business Administration with Accounting major.

After she received her degree, she worked as a revenue accountant for a company. While
working for that company, she noticed new financial analyst positions were opened and being
filled by a crew. She found that work much more interesting over revenue accounting position.
After learning more about the financial analyst position, she decided to switch her career from
the accounting profession, and perceived for the financial analyst profession.
As a financial analyst at Xcom Company, her current job responsibilities are to create
monthly financial reports, which require the company accountants approval. In case of the
numbers are not matching to the expected results, she requires to analyze the reports further. Her
responsibilities also include managing employees' timesheets, performing cost & variance time
analysis, creating charts in excel, and also supporting other departments in the company as
needed. She mentioned that the second week of the month is always busier for her because in
Xcom, this is the time the accountant closes the previous months finance report. I learned that
this job requires a detail oriented nature to analyze and catch all number differences in the
companys financial reports. She also plays another role by helping out the Human Resource
department located in California. This is where the Xcom headquarter for the USA is located. It
is one of her job responsibilities to compute the salary raise based on cost of living per state in
case the employee is relocating from Dallas. She needs to provide these reports to the Human
Resource Deparatment so that they can make the decision on employees salary.
While answering a question about the best part of her job, Rebecca mentioned about the
interaction with different types of coworkers, using some advanced technical tools, and also
creating financial reports with charts for presentation. She also mentioned that being a financial
analyst, the work involves does not get redundant, and always requires different tasks in opposite
to a specific technical job. While answering a question on the toughest part of her job, she

mentioned that working with different types of people can be very challenging sometimes. In a
talk about her future plans, Rebecca mentioned about being with the company and growing
forward. She believes that the company accountant position is a safer position than her current
financial analyst position in terms of stability. She also said that in case company has to lay off
their employees, they will cut down the financial analyst position, and have the accountant
handle both roles. She advised me to consider an accounting position as well as a financial
analyst position, and decide between which fits my interest best.
Rebecca gave me another gem advice of focusing on study, and working towards getting
a bachelors degree in Business Administration with any of three possible majors including
Finance, Accounting or Economics. She said that having a background in accounting can be
really helpful to develop the career as a financial analyst. She also put weight on gaining good
computer knowledge, skills which can be useful in creating charts, graphs, and also achieving
automation. According to her, these skills are crucial for a financial analyst to generate effective
results. While answering a question about the tools required to be learned for a financial analyst
position, she said that one should be mastered in Microsoft Office products mainly in Excel. She
also mentioned that using automation tools are really helpful when it requires creating same
reports every day or every month. Automation can save a crucial amount of time while
producing time efficient results. These are the skills she advised me to concentrate while I work
towards achieving my bachelors degree in Business Administration at the UTD.
Another important advice she gave was to prioritize the tasks when handling multiple
departments. According to her, meeting deadlines is one of the most important aspects of any
job, and prioritizing tasks can help to manage time in an efficient manner. She also advised me to
keep learning new technology that can make a person valuable asset to the company. She

mentioned that these all things together can be very handy when it comes to get a raise or
promotion in financial analyst role. Everything that I learned from this interview was motivating.
The only thing that surprised me the most was when she mentioned that if a company has to cut
the costs, they will first cut the financial analyst position, and will prefer to keep the accountant
to handle the financial analyst role. Though it was surprising news to me, I am very well
motivated by all other aspects of a financial analyst position.
This interview assignment experience helped me to assure that I have set a correct career
goal. Now, I am very clear that after achieving my bachelors degree in Business Administration
with Finance major, I will try to pursue my career in an accounting or a financial analyst
position. The information that I have achieved from the interview with Rebecca was really
helpful to make my mind. Following her advice, I am planning to focus on the classes that can
improve my Accounting, Finance and Computer skills. The key advices of keep learning new
technologies, focus on prioritizing tasks and automate the work, will play a very important role
in my life. Rebecca also provided her contact information as below:
Rebecca Bruner
Financial Analyst at Xcom
1234 Campbell Rd, Suite 1212
Richardson, TX 75080.
Phone

: 123-456-7890

E-mail id

: Rebecca.Bruner@Xcom.com

In all, this Informal Interview Reflection assignment has proven learning as well as a
thought provoking experience. The information that I learned from this exercise will be a big
help to define my job search strategies and future class selections at UTD. The key message that

I received from this interview is to make myself valuable by learning new computer skills as well
as developing my knowledge in Finance, Accounting and Economics. I have decided to follow
Rebeccas advice and achieve my bachelors degree in Business Administration with Finance
major. I will also learn more through the UTD advisors and other Accounting professionals to
gain further knowledge, which can help me to get a job in Accounting profession.