recruiting

Waga: Storytelling Drives Recruiting | Gear Up for Growth

By

Connect to top talent with real experiences.

This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Small Office / Home Office Cyber Protection Plan – Learn more here

Click to subscribe anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), Boomplay (Africa), or RSS.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

In the latest episode of Gear Up for Growth, powered by CPA Trendlines, Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing, speaks with Karen Waga, chief marketing officer of WilkinGuttenplan CPAs & Advisors, about the firm’s award-winning recruiting campaign, which resonated deeply with job seekers, employees, and peers across the profession.

More Gear Up for Growth here. | More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Waga says the campaign was built entirely on real employee experiences and candid storytelling, leveraging the firm’s flexible, people-first culture. The campaign offered a compelling and authentic view of life at WilkinGuttenplan from summer Fridays to paternity leave and personal caregiving.

READ MORE →

Most Tax and Accounting Firms Are Relying on Pay Raises in a Losing Battle for Talent

By

Hiring in the management consulting sector slows, but remains positive. Tax & accounting sector shrinks workforce.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The professional services industry is accelerating a quiet but consequential reshaping toward higher-end advisory services and away from low-end compliance work.

ASK CPA Trendlines A.I.: Where do accountants go when they quit?

Consulting firms have added more than 27,000 jobs over the past 12 months, pushing total headcount to 1.56 million. In contrast, the accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll sector remains stuck near 1.155 million employees, a plateau that has persisted for much of the past three years, according to a new analysis by CPA Trendlines Research.

READ MORE →

Why Would Anyone Become a CPA?

By

The competition between CPAs and non-CPAs is about to get more aggressive.

With Steven Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals: Thriving in Disruption

The CPA profession, or just plain old accounting profession, is currently facing challenges of getting more people to become CPAs or even having young people think about accounting as a career.

MORE STEVE SACKS: 150 Hours Revisted: The Profession Needs a Makeover | How Do You Value Your Most Important Asset? | Which is Better: A Year of Education or A Year of Experience? | Sell Service, Not Hours | Private Equity vs. the CPA Firm Partnership | CAS or CAAS? Getting Clarity | Fine-Tuning the Subscription Fee Model | When Cyber-Crime Hits Close to Home | How to Build a Winning Proposal | Six Ways to Fix Your Firm Agreement | The Great Resignation or a Reshuffling? | Listen to Learn | Build the Framework to a Solution with Five Answers | Try for Success, Not a Win
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

We hear about the slow drip of the professional pipeline; all sorts of remedies or suggestions have been offered. Is it because the profession still suffers an identity crisis exacerbated by an additional (if questionable) fifth year?  There are those already in the profession who are bemoaning low pay, long hours, and doubts about whether gaining a partnership is achievable (or worth it).

Oh, yes, there is the extra tuition load that must be taken on. So, higher debt, stagnant pay, long hours, and increased competition (think MBAs, CFAs) is a perfect storm.

READ MORE →

Marie Greene: Your Bad Apples Are Ruining You

By

Don’t be afraid to fire poor performers to appreciate great performers.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).


The Disruptors

With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Marie Greene founded Connected Accounting in 2019 out of a desire to create a new kind of accounting firm where firm culture and “reliable, reliable, reliable” customer service were the highest priorities.

“What is your culture? Who do you want to have on your team?” are questions leaders need to consider when seeking out new team members or deciding who to fire, says Greene. She advises firm owners to remember the message it sends when poor performers are retained because “the good people also leave because you keep the bad apples.”

MORE: Megan Genest Tarnow: Hire for Curiosity Rather Than Compliance | Clayton Oates: One Way to Keep Clients for Life | Randy Crabtree: Follow These Three Rules to Keep Employees Happy | Erik Solbakken: Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | Jennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone Loves | Mike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training Practices | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go  | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

GoProCPA.com Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Greene recognized that not everyone in a firm wants to be a partner, especially today when “we see partners work crazy hours” and rarely enjoy the benefit of a lighter workload that used to come with becoming a partner.
READ MORE →

How Do You Value Your Most Important Asset?

By

Yes, your employees.

By Steven E. Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals

Skills, abilities and experience are the elements recruiters use to assess candidates who come before them. But what is interesting is despite a skill set playing  a dominant role in the value that an employee brings to the organization, it may not be recognized as such. This is not a new concept. I came across research conducted in 1918 by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Center.

MORE STEVE SACKS: How to Build a Winning Proposal | Six Ways to Fix Your Firm Agreement | The Great Resignation or a Reshuffling? | Listen to Learn | Build the Framework to a Solution with Five Answers | Try for Success, Not a Win
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

The study discovered that almost 95% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills (better referred to as life skills ) and people skills, while  only 5% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge — hard skills.

READ MORE →

Randy Crabtree: Follow These 3 Rules to Keep Employees Happy

By

Randy Crabtree: Allow your employees freedom in two critical areas to win talent wars.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Randy Crabtree talks to a lot of other accountants and admits that he “steals ideas from everybody else.” Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery.

MORE: Erik Solbakken: Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | Jennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone Loves | Mike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training Practices | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go  | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

GoProCPA.com Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

One topic he’s been talking about a lot lately is the issue of mental health in the profession, which he feels is largely self-induced. Although he’s been asked to talk about mental health without mentioning burnout–don’t be a downer–Crabtree says it’s impossible. “I’m like, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. It doesn’t go away if I don’t talk about it,” he said.  

READ MORE →

How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars

By

Three young people working in an officeGetting creative can bring in better talent and better clients.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

One afternoon, the partner group of our outsourced accounting practice met for a state of the practice meeting conducted by our director of outsourced accounting. Our prior director left and we were looking for someone when one of our newbies asked if he could be considered.

MORE: Easy Ways to Avoid ‘Done But’ Tax Returns | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time? | Why Hiring Out of School Works | Leadership Growth is a Two-Way Street | Quiet Quitting: Are Employers Culturally Aware? | How to Guide Students into Accounting | Three Strategies to Keep Emerging Leaders Engaged
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

The 25-year-old had one year of experience, and we were chasing a controller-type person. The whole outsourced practice was in shambles. Revenue was nil and any clients we had were unsatisfied.
READ MORE →

OUTLOOK: The Biggest Change in Accounting? Personnel

By

Four ways to address the talent shortage.

By CPA Trendlines Research
The Rosenberg MAP Survey: National Study of CPA Firm Statistics

The accounting industry has just begun to make its most radical change.

  • It isn’t the tech.
  • It isn’t the shift to advisory services.
  • It isn’t the remote offices.
  • It isn’t the mergers and acquisitions.

It’s all those things, plus what they all add up to: personnel.

MORE: Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success | How to Build a Standout Team | Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | The 4 Traits of Great CPA Leaders | Why Leaders Must Ensure Clarity | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

The industry has been suffering a shortage of professionals for many years now. Decades. Everybody talks about it, but nobody is doing much about it … until now. And, according to Charles Hylan’s Foreword to The 2022 Rosenberg Survey, the solution is a combination of several significant changes.

READ MORE →

Who Wants to Be Partner? Not Enough

By

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Please?

By CPA Trendlines Research

As if the general and long-term shortage of accountants isn’t bad enough, now we’re seeing a widespread reluctance to take the final step in an accounting career, the step into partnership.

MORE: OUTLOOK 2023: Compensation Gets Creative | What New Leaders Want in Ownership | Getting Partners to Accept a New Pricing Philosophy | Survey Results: Partners Rejoice on Surging Fee Growth | Headcounts Grow 5%; Pay Rates Surge at 7% Pace | Fourteen Rules for Lateral Partner Hires

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

This is serious. According to the 2022 Rosenberg Survey, a quarter of all partners are over the age of 60 and either near or past many mandatory retirement ages. Many have sold their equity yet continue to work just to help their own firms grapple with personnel shortages.

But nobody works forever.

READ MORE →