MENLO PARK, CA, April 7, 2011 — The resume helps land the interview, but when it comes to making hiring decisions, employers are looking for less-obvious clues that an applicant is right for the job, a new Accountemps survey reveals. Forty-two percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) polled cited their "go-to" interview questions as those related to personal attributes — for example, "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" and "Describe your work ethic." Thirty-four percent of executives prefer to ask about qualifications, such as "Tell me about your previous experience" and "Why should we hire you?"

The survey was developed by Accountemps, the world's first and largest specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals. It was conducted by an independent research firm and is based on interviews with more than 1,000 CFOs from a stratified random sample of U.S. companies with 20 or more employees.

CFOs were asked, "When interviewing job candidates, what is your favorite question to ask?" Their responses fell into three basic categories: Those questions designed to learn more about the applicant's work style and personal attributes (42 percent of responses fell roughly into this category), those addressing the candidate's qualifications (34 percent of questions landed here) and job or company-specific questions (24 percent of CFOs picked these as favorites).