In Pursuit of Profit
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“Start with the core of the onion.” This is a mantra I use when talking to hiring managers about who they want for their job opening. This means starting with their most ideal candidate and working through different profiles. Most hiring managers are looking for either the next “up and comer” or someone who is established and has a solid 20 years left in the tank. As we work through candidate profiles, inevitably the recommendation is to always hire the person who can add the most value in the position. In the world of non-executive accounting and finance recruiting, the ‘core of the onion’ answer is never “I’d love someone who is late in their career.” There is often a stigma attached to late-career candidates that is uneducated at best, and at worst tantamount to ageism. But late-career candidates should be considered equally with all other candidates. Understanding why first starts with thinking about a professional’s career trajectory. This is a common story we hear: “We’ve been searching for an accountant for months and just can’t find anyone!” Clients that come to us with this story are usually weary and desperate for help in finding the right candidate for the specifics of their role. Often times work has been piling up and employee morale is down as other staff tries to cover the gaps. It is at this point that hiring managers begin to wonder if they should settle for less than what they were looking for, using the old “someone is better than no one” rationale. However, under-hiring for a role is often more costly than continued hiring delays. One of the most common questions we hear when talking to prospective clients is “How do I know if I have the right accounting team in place?”
Now, the underlying questions wrapped in this broader question can vary to include things like:
If you are wrestling with these same types of questions, use this guide to determine if you have the right accounting team in place to move your company forward: A guest post from Jen Girard at CFO Selections We get this request all the time. A small non-profit needs to hire a new Finance Manager. Sometimes they call this person a CFO or Controller, but whatever the title, the role is a Superhero who wears multiple costumes and does it all! How do you find (and afford) this person? Find out how other non-profits are doing it: 1/4/2022 Help! My Accountant is RetiringA lot has been said about The Great Resignation occurring across America right now, but not all employees are leaving for better opportunities. Long-term employees are retiring in droves right now. Many accounting and finance professionals that are close to retirement age are making the decision to step away from full-term work, while others that are well past retirement age are finally ready to hand over the reins at the companies they have served for many years. Any time a long-term employee leaves, a significant gap is created that their employer must fill with not only a new hire but also the technology and systems components that need to be built up in the transition. So, if your accountant is retiring, now is the time to plan for the shift. 12/13/2021 Do You Need an Ecommerce Accountant?Are ecommerce accountants different than regular accountants? Should you have an accountant that has previous ecommerce experience for your online business? These kinds of questions are becoming increasingly common with the dramatic rise in ecommerce business. In 2020 alone US ecommerce grew by more than 32% as traditional brick-and-mortar companies made the transition online and new ecommerce businesses started up in record numbers. Pre-pandemic many companies successfully used job boards like Indeed to hire high quality accounting and finance candidates. Due to their heavy advertising during this time, what I like to call the “Indeed Effect” emerged. Companies turned to job recruiting boards like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn in droves to meet their recruiting needs. Like you, I was seeing the impact of this first-hand: many companies in need of external recruiting help were quickly, easily, and cheaply able to find highly qualified candidates by posting an ad on an online job board. And as time went on, the results got even better as job board technology continued to evolve. The big names in recruiting became extremely transformative to the hiring process during this time, continuously refining their technology to improve the search process. As a result, even recruiters like myself benefitted from the phenomenon, often receiving high quality applicants to our job posts as well. Using these tools became an integral part of our recruiting process. Fast-forward almost two years and the tide has almost completely changed. When your controller leaves, the logical next step is to find someone to fill the vacant position. Right? Maybe not. Simply hiring another controller may not actually be the best decision for your business. We work with companies everyday who are looking for accounting and finance leadership roles and it is not uncommon to have clients tell us they need a controller and then listen to them define the role only to discover that what they are looking for is a different position entirely. Now, some organizations we work with are, in fact, in need of a controller. However, others have needs that better align with more senior financial leadership like that of a CFO, while others have requirements that fit better with a mid-level management accounting position. Instead of jumping right into hiring a controller, take the time to understand what kind of role will be the best fit for your company. After another difficult year, savvy employers have come to realize that supporting their office staff needs to be a top priority to combat labor shortage woes as financial uncertainty continues. With 85% of employees open to new job opportunities (even if they are not actively looking), employers understand how important it is to proactively work to retain employees. As the year comes to an end, organizations are asking themselves, “How can I support my accounting and finance staff next year?” In 2011, LinkedIn hit the 100 million user mark and I received an email thanking me for being in the first .5% of members. That means I was somewhere in the 400,000 range of early users. I joined LinkedIn in 2002, back when you needed a member to “let you in.” Why did I start using LinkedIn? I had been in recruiting for about three years and knew the power of networking when seeking a job. Furthermore, I recognized the power of a tool where someone could see the work history of people in their professional network. Fast forward to 2021 and now LinkedIn has more than 750 million members and is where every recruiter goes to find candidates for a position. I am no longer unique as a recruiter using LinkedIn like I was in 2002, but there are not many recruiters who have been using LinkedIn for 19 years. I see resources all the time on how to create and manage your LinkedIn profile, and I want to chime in on a few ideas that I have observed in nearly 20 years of looking at LinkedIn user profiles. (My focus will be on the CFO position as that is where I have spent my time the last 13 years with CFO Selections, as well as among individuals seeking jobs in the United States.) |
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3/21/2022