They just felt like a good fit. It is the most common reason firms give for a hire, and one of the most common reasons a hire fails. A good feeling in the room measures how well someone interviews, not how well they will do the job. Learning how to interview accountants with structure is what replaces that gut impression with evidence, a consistent read on whether a candidate can actually do the work and actually belongs on your team.
Define the role before you ask a single question
Structured interviewing starts before the interview. A role-clarity template forces the hiring team to agree, in advance, on the handful of competencies that genuinely predict success in the role, the technical skills, yes, but also the behaviors, like ownership, client communication, and judgment under deadline. When everyone interviews against the same defined competencies, you are comparing candidates on the same axes instead of trading vague impressions afterward.
Competency-based questions for technical skill
Competency-based interview questions ask candidates to describe real past situations rather than hypothetical intentions, on the logic that past behavior is the best available predictor of future behavior. The STAR structure keeps answers concrete: the Situation, the Task, the Action they took, and the Result. Instead of asking whether someone is detail-oriented, ask them to walk you through a time they caught a material error others had missed. The first invites a rehearsed yes. The second reveals how the person actually works.
Screen for values, not just skills
Technical competence gets a candidate onto the list. Values alignment decides who you hire. Build in questions that test for the traits your firm actually runs on, integrity, humility, the way someone handles a mistake or a disagreement. A candidate who is brilliant but corrosive to the team is a more expensive hire than one who is merely good and genuinely additive to the culture. Screening for fit is not softness. It is risk management. These are the structured interviews for accounting firms that actually protect a team.
Build a question bank you reuse
The final step is to stop reinventing the interview each time. Assemble a bank of vetted competency and values questions mapped to your roles, so every candidate for a given position faces a consistent, proven set. It makes interviews fairer, comparisons cleaner, and the whole process teachable to any partner or manager who steps into the room.
Rebecca’s specific interview question bank and role-clarity template are shared directly with clients — get in touch if you’d like the full set for your firm.