Are Your Internal Recruiting Efforts Enough?

​Sometimes when a client has a job opening, we hear “We want to try recruiting on our own for a bit before engaging a recruiter.” It may seem to be a perfectly logical response to try and find someone on your own before looking for outside help such as hiring an external recruiter. However, there are many reasons you should go ahead and get started with a contingent recruiter right away versus relying solely on your own internal efforts. Let me explain why!

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​Contingent Recruiting Defined
Contingency recruitment is when a company hires a recruiting agency or contract recruiter to find candidates for an open position. The recruitment agency or contractor only gets paid if a candidate they find is hired by the organization. Until then, they are essentially working for free.

Why Should You Hire a Contingent Accounting Recruiter?

• To Supplement Your Own Efforts

Contingent recruiting allows you to still recruit for the position on your own concurrently. You can post an ad, network, and recruit for the position while the external recruiter is doing the same. There is no charge to interview the external recruiter’s candidates and compare them to the ones you are getting on your own. What they offer is complementary to the company’s own internal recruiting efforts.

• To Provide Market Education

Contingent recruiters work with many companies and candidates, so they have a more in-depth understanding of the broader market. They can provide you with valuable information about the candidate market including current salary information for the position given the level, location, size of company, and responsibilities. They can also act as consultants to help you determine what type of technical and soft skills a candidate needs in addition to what level the position truly needs to be.

• To Engage Passive Top Talent

A good contingent recruiter will be able to engage top talent and focus on passive candidates versus relying on incoming applications from job postings. Additionally, they will have a network and pool of passive candidates they can tap into when they find a role that would be a good fit. Candidates who apply to job postings are just a small portion of the overall pie of potential candidates. Often the highly talented passive candidates aren’t checking out the job boards to even know that you are hiring. But even if the timing is right and they are on the right job board where your position is posted and apply, you may overlook their resume, or it could get lost in the black hole of the portal. Contingent recruitment outsourcing can save you time, energy, and money while yielding a better candidate pool.
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• To Provide Specialization

Even if you have an internal recruiter, they are likely to be a generalist versus specialized in accounting and finance positions. Therefore, more time and energy are required than hiring an external recruiter specializing in finance to more efficiently and effectively find the type of candidates you need for your roles. External recruiters are generally able to get a high-quality candidate into the seat quicker due to their experience and specialization.

In summary, you may be sacrificing the quality of candidates as well as time in getting someone in the seat if you are not using an experienced contingent recruiter. Relying solely on internal recruiting efforts will not yield the best passive candidates for your role, but a well-connected contingent recruiter could be a great help you!

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​Taking the Next Step
ASP provides contingent recruiting services for all accounting and finance positions below the CFO-level (Director of Finance, Controller, Accounting Manager, Senior Financial Analyst, Senior/Staff Accountant, etc.). We also recruit roles in Treasury, Tax, and Audit. Our accounting recruiters have years of accounting and finance backgrounds as well as years of recruiting experience. We are the best at what we do because we are accountants hiring accountants. Please contact us for more insights into today’s accounting and finance hiring market!

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About the Author
Joss Stokke – Recruiting Services Leader, The ASP Team

Joss joined ASP in 2022, bringing with her over 6 years of experience in accounting and finance recruiting and financial services recruiting experience.  Joss’s prior 15-year accounting and finance career, with experience in tax, audit, SEC reporting, management reporting, investor relations, treasury, mergers and acquisitions, financial performance and analysis, budgeting, forecasting and valuations, makes her uniquely qualified in assisting both clients and candidates in filling accounting and finance positions. Joss began her career in public accounting at Ernst & Young in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Joss holds an undergraduate and graduate degree in accounting/taxation from the University of South Carolina. She lives in Portland, Oregon and serves clients in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado.

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