This blog includes 50 EY interview questions and answers for specific roles and experience levels. There are sections for freshers, for EY GDS (Global Delivery Services) associates, and for engineering positions such as Java Developer, Data Engineer, or QA Automation Engineer. For your convenience, the answers have been expanded upon and, where appropriate, are given in STAR format. Additionally, they have been customised for your specific role to help you stand out.
Table of Contents
EY Interview Questions for Freshers
Freshers undergo an assessment based on clarity and alignment with EY values and culture. These questions are designed to evaluate your communication, adaptability, and motivational skills, all of which are essential for the interview.
1. Tell me about yourself.
Not long ago, I received a B.Tech degree in computer science from XYZ University. I am skilled in data analysis and programming. In my final academic year, I was part of a team that created an online attendance system with Python and Flask. This experience was valuable as it taught me a lot about collaboration and meeting deadlines. Additionally, I did a summer internship with ABC Tech where I automated the generation of weekly reports using Excel macros. This automation reduced the manual workload by 40%. At EY, I would like to take advantage of my analytical skills in problem identification and solution offering for future issues, as well as my ability to learn new things.
2. Why do you want to join EY?
I have always admired EY for the scope of its innovation, impact, strong ethics, and reputation, especially in data analytics, cloud consulting, and sustainability. More importantly, I am excited by EYU’s L&D investment and the level of ownership encouraged in early career professionals. My professional development goals will be met at EY, where I can work on multiple projects, capitalise on their strong global presence through EY GDS, make an impact on actual business challenges, and learn from seasoned mentors.
3. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
My most notable skills and qualities are analytical thinking, consistency, and detail orientation. From my personal experience, I tend to do very well in tackling intricate issues due to my ability to divide them into smaller components and develop structured resolutions. This skill of mine has helped me succeed in multiple projects and academics. Over the last few months, I have been focused on improving my public speaking. I used to get quite nervous when presenting to larger groups. To change this, I started volunteering to host college events and recently delivered a seminar to over 100 students, which significantly improved my confidence.
4. What are your career aspirations in the next 5 years?
Over the next five years, I see myself becoming promoted to a subject-matter expert or team lead at EY, where I will oversee cross-functional teams and guide associate-level employees. I aspire to become an expert in analytics and automation, participate in strategic initiatives, and ultimately shape decisions for major clients. The focus EY places on learning and cross-border collaboration makes it the ideal platform for this journey.
5. What are your salary expectations?
According to market analysis data and Glassdoor, an EY analyst’s average starting salary in India is between ₹6 and ₹8 LPA. Since my only goals are learning and development, I would be open to any offer that addresses EY’s pay structure in a clear and legal manner.
6. Describe a time you worked in a team.
In college, I once worked on a mobile application aimed at identifying fake news with an ML classifier. I served as team lead, overseeing the work of four people, one each in design, development, testing, and data. About halfway through the project, we lost our tester to a family emergency, and I had to step in to help keep morale up. In the end, we managed to finish it two days before the deadline, and it was selected for a regional tech fest. I gained the initiative, leadership, and self-control necessary to step up and lead when it mattered most from that project.
7. How do you handle tight deadlines?
Effective planning and prioritisation are essential. When I undertook an internship, my manager told us about a client report that was due in 2 days rather than the usual 5. I created a Google Sheet to track progress, assigned roles to everyone, and set out to break the work up into smaller pieces. In order to avoid last-minute rush work, my manager also appreciated that I made sure to report progress every day. In this way, we submitted the report with all the required information, and there were 0 mistakes. I usually perform well under pressure because I become more organised, focused, and a good communicator.
8. Tell me about a time you made a mistake and what you learned.
I made a mistake when setting up a database schema for my second-year project, which led to inaccurate data during the testing stage. Initially, I attempted a solo fix, but eventually, I came to know that it was a bigger issue. So, I worked with my team to restore the system to its most recent backup, informed them about the mess I made, and then gradually validated the schema with stronger rules to ensure data integrity as I applied the changes. Although I had to learn this the hard way, it feels much safer to always keep backups and document the modifications made.
9. How do you approach learning new skills?
I use a combination of practical and theoretical methods. To learn new skills, I start with online classes or course documentation for foundational knowledge. Eventually, I will apply what I’ve learned in my projects by solving challenges on LeetCode and HackerRank. I created a sales dashboard using sample data after learning Power BI from LinkedIn Learning, and I showcased it in my portfolio. In order to improve, I constantly evaluate which tactics worked and which didn’t, getting feedback from peers and mentors.
10. Do you have any questions for us?
Yes, I would like to know what qualities or actions have contributed to the success of previous EY freshmen. Could you also elaborate on the types of certifications or training programs that are offered to someone in my position during the first year?
EY GDS (Global Delivery Services) Interview Questions
Interviews at EY GDS emphasise participation in global teams, project management, and overall communication skills. Be ready for scenario-based questions, especially ones where STAR answers are highlighted.
11. Walk me through your resume.
I earned a B.E. in Information Technology from ABC Institute and completed an internship at Infosys, where I worked with reporting tools built on SQL. After my internship, I took a position with a startup where I developed Python scripts to automate several backend processes. I am currently focusing on improving my data engineering capabilities, and I’m also working towards a cloud computing certification. With these positions, I gained the technical and teamwork skills necessary for an EY GDS job, which by definition involves continuous delivery and collaboration with a variety of teams.
12. Why do you want to work at EY GDS?
EY GDS distinguishes itself as a unique system that combines global reach with sector-specific expertise. Working with different teams around the globe on live client engagements is extremely exciting for me. I want to work for a high-achieving organisation that values collaboration, strategic change management, innovation, and operational efficiency, all of which are factors that are highly significant to me. I am especially interested in the support that EY GDS offers in advanced analytics and other digital automation technologies.
13. Tell me about a time you managed conflicting priorities.
Two of my top priorities during my internship were resolving a persistent bug from a data pipeline and maintaining two dashboards that required frequent updates from various stakeholders. I had to come up with a solution for both within the same timeframe. After receiving instructions from my reporting manager, I assessed the complexity of both tasks and pitched a solution. I split my day into two blocks, one for each task, and repeatedly shared updates. Using parts of my previously built scripts also helped improve my previous dashboards. I finished both assignments on schedule, and I received recognition for my clear and effective resolution of the conflict regarding my workload during the internship.
14. How do you handle feedback from global clients?
To maximise learning opportunities, I embrace all feedback. During one of our projects for a client in the UK, they pointed out some inconsistencies with the formatting of a report we submitted. In this particular case, instead of defending my team’s work, I accepted the feedback, outlined specific expectations during a brief call, and created a new report format. In order to improve even more, I created a checklist to ensure that the formatting was used consistently in all upcoming submissions.
15. Describe a situation when you worked with remote teams.
I worked with colleagues from Germany, the US, and India on a virtual capstone project. I encountered challenges with the schedule and the way people communicated. To address this problem, I proposed that we set up a shared Google Drive and Slack for documents and notes, including all meeting summaries, while providing asynchronous video updates through Loom. To help with time zone fatigue, I also ran a flexible meeting schedule.
We completed the project without any issues, and we were praised for the effective documentation and collaboration provided. I discovered the value of empathy and structure when working across sociopolitical boundaries, as well as how to adjust to virtual teams.
16. How do you ensure timely delivery with time zone differences?
I apply both overlap planning and proactive communication. For example, I regularly shared finished work by the end of the day (IST) with the team in Poland during my internship so they could review it in the morning. To accommodate several iterations, I also set internal submission dates that were well ahead of the actual due dates. With Trello and Outlook Calendar’s multi-time zone view feature, we were able to maintain visibility and track progress. The described approach complemented sustained momentum, minimised dependency bottlenecks, and enabled consistent delivery.
17. How do you handle communication gaps in distributed teams?
I learned to solve communication gaps with early overcommunication and by documenting everything. There was a project I worked on where we missed a deliverable because there was no clear ownership. I have changed my ways since then by sending summaries of the meetings with the action items attached to them as emails or Slack messages. I have also changed to using a shared tracker where I update the status and give ETAs. I devote the bare minimum time possible for important updates, so I prefer short calls or voice messages to reduce any remaining uncertainty. These habits minimise the need to go back and forth and provide necessary accountability, something very important when working across continents at EY GDS.
18. Which tools do you rely on for task management and collaboration?
For agile task boards and sprint planning, I have used Jira. Trello covers individual projects, and I use Microsoft Teams for day-to-day communications. For documentation, I prefer Google Docs and Confluence, and for collaboration in coding, GitHub works well. I also make use of Slack for short notices and reminders. These tools improve productivity, particularly in EY GDS settings where tasks are completed autonomously, and it’s critical to be able to view work at various stages.
19. Describe a time you proactively solved a problem.
An issue came up when I was working on a script meant for report automation. It was doing far too much, running for up to thirty minutes or possibly timing out completely. Since there was no warning, I took the time to see what the problem was and optimised the inefficient nested loops. Execution time dropped to under 5 minutes because I used vectorised operations in Pandas. In addition to conducting real-world testing, I documented my modifications and implemented an instant team-wide enhancement that ultimately helped create a standard reporting toolkit. This change reflects the EY GDS philosophy of continuous process improvement, which emphasises innovative efficiency, quality delivery, and avoiding tasks just for their own sake.
20. How do you align with EY GDS’s expectations of ownership and delivery?
For me, ownership is not only completion of the task but also taking responsibility for the entire process from planning to feedback after delivery. I know who the stakeholders are, I keep them posted, I document every action taken, I seek clear answers early, and I think back on every delivery to see what can be done better next time. In a setting like EY GDS, where work is sequentially dependent, I always make sure that my contributions are delivered on time, clearly, and with adequate explanations. With or without supervision, I always work towards delivering the highest calibre of results.
EY Technical Interview Questions
EY evaluates your understanding of core programming concepts, system design, and tool application in practical scenarios through technical interviews. These are similar for the developer, QA, and data positions.
21. What is your experience with tools and technologies?
With Python and SQL, I have worked on automating processes and extracting information from large data sets. In one of my projects, I cleaned and merged transaction data using Pandas and NumPy before creating visual reports in Power BI. For source code management, I practice Git and GitHub daily. I am familiar with versioning, feature branches, and pull request reviews. Moreover, I have experience working with cloud applications such as AWS S3, EC2, and Lambda. These platforms enable the creation of complete data pipelines and client reporting dashboards, which I am eager to implement at EY.
22. What is the difference between REST and SOAP APIs?
The stateless architectural style known as REST (Representational State Transfer) uses common HTTP methods, including GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. It is lightweight and simple to use in web applications because it usually delivers data in JSON. On the other hand, the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), which is formatted in XML, has strict rules. Error handling, security (WS-Security), and transaction compliance are all integrated into it. Because of its speed and ease of use, REST is preferred in modern applications. However, because of its strong standards, SOAP is still used for enterprise-level financial or secure systems.
23. Explain Agile methodology and your experience with it.
Agile encourages flexible planning, ongoing refinement, stakeholder feedback, and incremental progress towards goals. Jira was used for implementing Agile with sprint cycles of 2-4 weeks. During my internship, I joined daily standup meetings, assisted with backlog grooming, and completed work in short iterative cycles. This approach helped us to sustain agility and gave us the ability to adapt as necessary while still meeting deadlines. Observing these processes firsthand demonstrated the importance of collective strategic planning, sprint reviews, and demonstration sessions, which are aligned with EY’s worldwide agile delivery framework.
24. How proficient are you with Git and version control?
In all of my academic projects and internships, I have used Git. I am competent at cloning repositories, branching, committing, merging, and pulling, as well as dealing with any arising merge conflicts. I also make use of semantic commit messages and collaborate on PRs on GitHub.
Once, I managed to recover a crucial feature branch that was thought to be lost forever by using reflog and git cherry-pick, bypassing what would have been hours of tedious work. To me, Git is much more than a code repository. It serves as a collaborative platform and a documentation system that fosters best practices in engineering.
25. What happens when you type a URL into your browser?
Initially, a DNS request is made to translate the domain into an IP address, and, at the same time, the browser checks the cache. The server then receives a TCP handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK) and HTTP or HTTPS GET request. In response, the server sends HTML, which the browser parses.
Afterwards, the browser JavaScript is executed, CSS is loaded, and utilising the DOM and box model, the page is rendered. Font and image resources load asynchronously. If secure (HTTPS), TLS handshake occurs before data is exchanged. This understanding aids in performance debugging and provides opportunities for optimisation.
26. What is the difference between functional and non-functional testing?
Functional testing ensures that the application operates as required for use cases like logins, form submissions, and transactions. Its focus is on “what” the system does. Non-functional testing relies on how well the system operates, evaluating load performance, security, and even usability. For example, accepting correct credentials on a given form is functional, but testing the login with 10,000 concurrent users is non-functional (load testing). Both are critical in EY’s quality assurance frameworks.
27. Do you have any experience with CI/CD pipelines?
Yes. In a group project, we had a situation where we needed to automate the build and test workflows, so we used GitHub Actions. After each commit, a set of unit tests was run, and if the build was successful, it was deployed to AWS Lambda. We also set up Slack notifications for any Slack build failures. This provided continuous integration with the fastest possible feedback. Currently, I am looking into more advanced Jenkins and Azure DevOps because I think they are used in EY’s enterprise-grade delivery systems.
28. Why is exception handling important in software development?
The use of exception handling guarantees that errors are managed professionally without bringing the application down. It improves the user experience, makes debugging easier, and strengthens the codebase. For instance, catching and logging a NullPointerException or a FileNotFoundException demonstrates swift problem-diagnosing capabilities. Working with high-end systems in areas like consulting, which includes EY, for example, requires you to have clear exception logging with fallbacks and issue service outage notifications.
29. How do you approach debugging?
Initially, I make sure to reproduce the issue multiple times. After that, I retrieve and examine the relevant logs, set breakpoints, and narrow down the nature of the error using binary search or print statements. After I find the root cause, I resolve the issue, perform regression testing, and write automated tests to ensure the problem does not arise again. As an example, I remember resolving a rounding error in a transformation pipeline where data was being mismatched. In this case, applying decimal precision libraries and validating with unit tests resolved the issue. I make sure to document the root cause so that in case something similar arises in the future, it can be easily avoided.
30. Tell me about a tough technical problem you solved.
Incorrect joins caused a 45-minute runtime problem in a data processing script that I worked on. By applying filters before joining, batching load operations, and rewriting the logic to use indexed SQL tables, I was able to reduce the job time to under 8 minutes.
Adding unit tests, exception handling, and logging to the script ensured reliability for the solution and additionally strengthened my architecture. Besides earning me praise from my mentor and the client-facing team, it also improved processing time and daily productivity for the entire team.
EY Java Developer Interview Questions
EY’s Java Developer interviews review your knowledge of the core concepts of Java, object-oriented programming (OOP), collections, multithreading, and modern Java features like streams and lambda expressions. The engineering aspects of EY’s responsibilities should be reflected in these answers.
31. What is the difference between HashMap and Hashtable in Java?
HashMap forms part of the Java Collections Framework and is non-synchronised, meaning it is not thread-safe but performs better in single-threaded environments. It allows one null key and many null values.
In contrast, a Hashtable is synchronised by default, making it thread-safe but slower. It disallows all types of null keys and null values.
Nowadays, most distributed systems applications, like those at EY, often employ HashMap with external synchronisation or use ConcurrentHashMap in scenarios that require high performance and thread safety.
32. Explain the difference between an abstract class and an interface.
A class is said to be abstract if it contains both concrete methods with a body and abstract methods without one. It allows partial implementation since it supports constructors, instance variables, and access modifiers.
Earlier, interfaces were restricted to method declarations only, but since Java 8, they can include default and static methods. The purpose of interfaces is to allow multiple inheritance and to provide a promise without binding the details of the implementation.
In my personal projects, I usually define the service layer interfaces with ServiceInterface and use abstract classes for common utility or DAO base classes. I found out that EY employs this abstraction in mid- to large-scale reusability and scalable code bases.
33. What is multithreading in Java? Give an example.
Multithreading enables the parallel execution of two or more threads, which improves the performance of the CPU, particularly for I/O intensive applications or those that run in the background.
As an example, I built a file processor using the Runnable interface where each thread was responsible for parsing a file and uploading the corresponding data to the database. This was done using Executors. newFixedThreadPool(4).
At EY, I find multithreading indispensable for high-volume applications because responsiveness and speed are critical, and parallelism greatly improves these parameters.
34. What are Java 8 Streams and how do you use them?
Java 8 supports streams that operate on collections using functional techniques. They offer a series of filter(), map(), sorted(), and collect() methods for processing data in a declarative way.
For example, in one of the modules, I identified all employees with a salary greater than fifty thousand dollars.
List highEarners = employees.stream()
.filter(e -> e.getSalary() > 50000)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
In an EY project, transforming and grouping transactions in billing modules with streams made readability better and reduced boilerplate code. These features are invaluable in enterprise-level projects.
35. How do you prevent memory leaks in Java applications?
Memory leaks may occur when unused objects still have references pointing to them. I avoid this by:
- Not allowing static references to large objects or collections
- WeakReference usage for cache mechanisms
- Unregistering event listeners
- Properly closing DB connections, file streams, and network sockets
- Using Eclipse MAT or VisualVM to locate retained objects
I recall a Spring Boot application with a file upload feature that had a memory leak issue. I resolved this by closing an unused input stream, and it improved stability during high-concurrency loads, which is critical for scalable apps at EY.
EY Data Engineer Interview Questions
Data engineers at EY require expertise in SQL, data architecture, and data and cloud services such as AWS and Azure, as well as up-to-date technologies like Apache Spark, Kafka, and Airflow. The questions evaluate your skills to maintain data pipelines, preserve data quality, and scale data operations in a cost-effective manner.
36. What are the different types of SQL JOINs?
Using SQL JOIN functions, rows from two or more tables with a related column are combined.
- Records with matching values from both tables are returned through the INNER JOIN
- LEFT JOIN (or LEFT OUTER JOIN) returns all records from the left table while returning only matched records from the right.
- RIGHT JOIN (or RIGHT OUTER JOIN) provides the opposite outcome of LEFT JOIN’s functionality.
- FULL OUTER JOIN provides all records from both tables and returns unmatched records from both sides.
- CROSS JOIN gives the Cartesian product of both tables.
- SELF JOIN allows tables to join with themselves using aliases.
In my earlier project, I improved transactional data with customer metadata through LEFT JOINs. Efficient use of JOINs is critical for EY when it comes to reporting and compliance data.
37. How do you optimise a slow SQL query?
I optimise slow SQL queries using the following systematic procedure:
- To examine query performance, use EXPLAIN plans.
- Add indexes to WHERE or JOIN fields.
- Don’t use SELECT *; instead, only retrieve the necessary columns.
- Before JOINs, limit the dataset and do an early filter.
- When required, use JOINs in place of subqueries.
- For queries that require a lot of reading, use denormalisation and partitioning.
By optimising a report query, the execution time of one project was reduced from 18 minutes to less than 90 seconds. I used CTEs (Common Table Expressions) to rewrite nested subqueries and construct composite indexes. EY values these efficiency gains in client-facing data dashboards.
38. What’s your experience with Apache Spark?
For large-scale ETL pipelines, I used PySpark’s capabilities. One of the cases was extracting more than 10 GB of logs from AWS S3, where I performed data cleaning via DataFrame operations such as dropna, withColumn, and groupBy, and then proceeded to write the processed logs into partitioned Parquet files.
Additionally, I implemented analytical queries using Spark SQL and monitored data in real time using Spark Streaming. I ran the jobs on EMR clusters for AWS. By using Spark’s in-memory processing, we cut down transformation periods by over 70%. This was extremely important for real-time reporting for EY’s data projects.
39. What is the difference between a Data Lake and a Data Warehouse?
A Data Lake serves the purpose of storing raw, unstructured, and semi-structured data along with structured data. It’s adaptable, ideal for big data, IoT, or ML pipelines, and has schema-on-read. Commonly used tools are AWS S3, Azure Data Lake, or Hadoop.
A data warehouse, on the other hand, uses BI tools that optimise SQL queries like Snowflake, Redshift, and BigQuery to store structured data with schema-on-write. A data warehouse is best for financial reporting, analytics, and dashboards.
EY often uses both data warehouses and data lakes together, staging data in a lake and transforming it into warehouse-ready models through tools like dbt or Apache Airflow.
40. How do you ensure data quality in ETL pipelines?
I maintain data quality using the following checkpoints:
- Schema validation through Great Expectations and custom JSON schema validators.
- Null checks, type validation, and deduplication.
- Row count verification from source to target with pre- and post-load validation.
- Outlier detection and profiling are done through data analysis to identify unexpected distributions.
- Logging and alerting via Airflow/Slack if thresholds are breached.
- Unit tests for critical transformation functions.
On one project for EY, I implemented data contracts alongside automated dataset validation tests within the CI pipeline for pre-production datasets. This aligned perfectly with EY’s focus on proactive, audit-ready, and error-resilient data engineering systems.
EY Automation Testing Interview Questions
EY focuses on automation testing from a software quality assurance point of view. The gaps in framework automation and best practices, for instance, tests and even tools such as Selenium, TestNG, and Jenkins, are covered here.
41. What is Selenium, and how do you use it in automation testing?
Selenium integrates with other code and enables users to automate browser processes. It can be integrated with numerous languages such as Java, Python, C#, and with tools like TestNG and Junit.
In my recent project, Selenium WebDriver, along with Java and TestNG, was used to automate regression testing for a banking web application. While automating, I used the Page Object Model (POM) design strategy, encapsulating the logic for each page element within a class. This approach minimised redundancy and improved maintainability. Jenkins and Selenium tests were also integrated for night runs with email-based automated failure reporting.
EY QA teams use Selenium, as it increases test execution efficiency, provides prompt outcome visibility, and ensures swift automated feedback during development cycles.
42. How do you decide which test cases to automate?
Automation is useful to me:
- For repetitive and high-volume test cases, such as logging in and the checkout flow.
- For stable and rarely changing features.
- For data-driven tests with numerous parameters.
- For regression suites, smoke, and sanity tests.
- For those tests that are vital for business processes.
I don’t automate UI components that change frequently or in one-time test scenarios. For EY’s agile fast-shifting contexts, this provides an optimal ROI-to-test upkeep ratio. For EY’s fast-paced agile environments, this helps balance ROI and test maintenance.
43. What testing and bug tracking tools have you worked with?
I’ve collaborated with:
- Jira is used for reporting, sprint planning, and issue tracking.
- TestNG is used to create test suites, organise tests, and generate results.
- Postman: for automating and testing APIs.
- Jenkins: for the integration of CI/CD tests.
- For cross-browser testing, use BrowserStack.
- GitHub: for code reviews and version control.
Jira, Jenkins, and Git are standard tools at EY. Because I am accustomed to these, I can onboard and participate in business QA projects more quickly.
44. What challenges have you faced in automation testing, and how did you overcome them?
At my previous organisation, one of the issues I encountered was flaky tests due to network conditions and dynamic UI. These tests would often fail randomly during CI builds.
To resolve this, I made the following changes:
- I swapped the brittle XPath locators for more robust CSS selectors.
- I replaced implicit waits with explicit waits (WebDriverWait).
- I used custom utility functions to deal with pop-ups and asynchronous behaviour.
- Some test flows were changed to rely less on frontend verification through user interface interaction and more on backend verification through API calls.
As a result, the failure rate was reduced from 20% to under 5%. This increased the confidence in the automated test suite, which is crucial for client-facing projects at EY.
45. What’s the difference between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing?
Smoke testing is performed after a new build to verify that basic functions like login and home page loading are working as intended. It is also known as a build verification test.
Sanity testing focuses on one or a few specific functions of the system that are tested after a bug is fixed or a feature is added (like verifying the checkout bug).
Both are crucial in EY’s agile development cycles. Sanity tests verify that recent changes have not disrupted any essential functionality, while smoke tests provide information for more thorough testing.
EY Tax Analyst Interview Questions
An EY Tax Analyst must be knowledgeable about GST, compliance requirements, Indian and foreign taxes, as well as the necessary software and financial records. These address your worries regarding the fundamental ideas and scenarios you will encounter in EY.
46. What is a recent GST or Income Tax amendment that impacted businesses?
Recent changes include the introduction of e-invoicing under GST. From August 2023, firms with a turnover exceeding ₹5 crore are required to issue e-invoices via the GST portal. This policy improves tax compliance and reduces invoicing scams.
The change calls for businesses to renew their billing system interfaces with the IRP. At EY, e-invoicing requires appraisal for changes to ensure accuracy and compliance, as they impact system updates and audit readiness.
47. How do you ensure compliance while working under tight deadlines?
I use a systematic process:
- Keep track of due dates on a calendar for compliance-related items such as income tax, GST, TDS, and others.
- Create a checklist of steps for each return so there are no omissions.
- For faster calculation, use tax software such as Tally, ClearTax, or EY’s proprietary systems.
- To allow time for revisions, hold internal submission dates three to four days before the actual deadline.
During one of my internships, I completed GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B submissions for a multi-GSTIN client under strict time constraints. Excel macros for data reconciliation helped me expedite the filing process and lower my risk of late fees.
48. Walk me through how you’d conduct a tax audit.
A tax audit is a thorough examination of an organisation’s books and accounts to ensure it complies with the applicable provisions of the Income Tax Act, usually 44AB.
My workflow entails:
- Analysis through reviewing the trial balance, profit and loss, and ledger statements.
- Validation of books for entries under TDS, GST, or cash thresholds.
- Reconciliation of income from books and Form 26AS.
- Preparation of the Form 3CD audit report and incorporation of details such as depreciation, related party transactions, and tax reserves.
- Discussion of outcomes with stakeholders and recording them as observations.
At EY, these audits also include client interfacing, extraction of required data from ERP systems, and cross-sectioning of the audit materials for statutory review.
49. What tax tools or ERP systems have you worked with?
I have experience with:
- Tally ERP 9 and Tally Prime are tools for ledger management and filing GST returns.
- ClearTax for ITR filing and tax reconciliation.
- Excel for tax computation templates that use macros and pivot tables.
- Oracle NetSuite during my internship for invoice generation, journal entries, and indirect taxation module applications.
EY uses custom dashboards with ERPs, so I am prepared to handle large client portfolios and adapt to tax technology workflows.
50. How do you stay updated with changing tax regulations?
I stay updated through:
- Membership-based alerts like EY Global Tax Alerts, Taxmann, CAClubIndia, and others.
- Observing the circulars and notifications on incometax.gov.in and cbic.gov.in.
- LinkedIn updates from prominent CAs and EY professionals.
- ICAI webinars and certificate courses.
As with most tax laws, issues under GST evolve rapidly. With a proactive approach, I avoid compliance hurdles and improve advisory conversations, something EY advocates.
Conclusion
Making it through an interview at EY (Ernst & Young) requires more than technical skills. It demands clarity of communication, problem-solving capabilities in the real world, and an understanding of EY’s core values as well as its global delivery model. Be it EY GDS and any of the technical profiles, Java developer positions, or even a tax analyst interview, these 50 ready EY interview questions and answers will ensure you are confident to face them all.
Want to land a job at EY? Since Intellipaat’s programmes were developed in collaboration with EY, they will quickly prepare you for interviews.