​Interviewing is a necessary evil in the professional world.  Most of us despise it, few of us are good at it, and it’s rarely ever considered fun. It’s an interesting phenomenon because, although it’s necessary to advance in our careers, it’s not something that we do very often, which means we’re typically not practiced at it. 

Companies that post salary ranges may choose to do so voluntarily, in the name of equity and transparency, or be required to do so by law. The idea is that by sharing salary bands job applicants are given a range of earnings to expect, eliminating the disparity that can occur when some groups of candidates are less likely to negotiate for a higher salary. Salary ranges should promote fairness and ensure employees are compensated appropriately for the value they bring to their employer.

So, why are employers and job seekers alike in an uproar about salary ranges? Let’s look at what has gone wrong and how both employers and job seekers can respond to position themselves well in today’s job market. 

That figure is staggering but let's focus on your individual calculation. There are many different ways to calculate Cost of Vacancy (COV), but it’s not just the dollars and cents of salaries and benefits that need to be considered (although that is certainly at the forefront of hiring managers’ minds). You can also put real numbers behind morale, burnout, turnover, overtime, and the overall attitude of an accounting or finance department.  

​The solution he proposes is to change SEC reporting requirements, which would only help publicly traded companies, though he seems to indicate that these struggles are being felt by a broad array of business types and sizes.

​Unfortunately, it seems this article misses one very important point – the ways in which accounting and HR can work together to benefit the overall business. As a result, we’d like to cover that aspect of the discussion to help remind companies that their accountants are not the villains in the discussion of hiring and employee retention.

“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.
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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.

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. 

​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.
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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.)