This post is for the employers. If you’re a job seeker you can ignore this.
With many of the big firms having called their people back to the office three or more days a week, more professionals than ever are on the hunt for remote work. Adding to this flood of jobseekers in the accounting space is the worrying trend of layoffs which you’d think would make things great for hiring managers. You should have your pick of the litter, right?
What’s actually happening is your inbox is getting blown up with people in far off countries who took an accounting class once ten years ago and Uber drivers who think “how hard can accounting be anyway?” when they see that job opening in tax paying $80k a year.
Why is this? Is it you? Is it the job market? Consider these reasons why you’re not getting that rockstar you’ve been looking for.
You Suck at Writing Job Descriptions
We’ve seen your job descriptions, trust us when we say there are more terrible ones than there are fabulous ones. And this isn’t necessarily your fault if you’re but a humble HR person just listing the tech stack a partner told you to put in the job ad.
And some of you go way too hard on the LinkedIn Lunatic talk. You’re scaring away the good candidates by overemphasizing the “fast-paced environment” (to job seekers, this is code for “we’re disorganized and the manager labels everything ASAP regardless of how soon she actually needs it, often in emails sent at 10 pm on Fridays”).
Exhibit A:
Trust, tax professionals know certain months of the year are fast-paced. You don’t need to overexplain or worse, brag about an environment that keeps people on their toes. Only the most desperate of people are going to apply if you’re waving those red flags so proudly.
Everyone Gets Terrible Applicants
This one is definitely not your fault. EVERYONE gets spammed by unqualified randoms living on distant continents hoping for a sweet remote gig. That’s just the nature of putting up jobs on the internet.
A recruiter we spoke to who asked to remain anonymous because she doesn’t want people knowing she associates with the likes of us told us that a general rule of thumb for hiring is that 10% of applicants will be somewhere in the ballpark. Not even perfect, just possibly what you’re looking for. Yikes.
Your Expectations Are Too High
Is this your fault? Actually, yeah. You want a rockstar but you’re paying karaoke bar salary. You want someone who knows all the software inside and out, not someone who knows a handful of the major ones well. You want someone to wear 25 different hats. You’re holding out for the absolute perfect candidate to fall in your lap, someone who meets every one of your many requirements and who immediately blows you away on the first phone call with their eloquence and charm.
Whatever your oversized hopes and dreams, you really need to get real about what you’re bringing to the table. Maybe your applicants all suck because the person you’re looking for doesn’t exist, or at least isn’t looking to crunch numbers at an accounting firm for a living.
You’re Casting Too Wide a Net
If you deploy a purse seine net, you’re going to catch a lot of the wrong fish. This goes back to job descriptions a bit, making sure what you’re putting out there is going to grab that right person you’re looking for.
If your job opening and description are so generic that applicants don’t understand what exactly you’re looking for you bet tons of people are going to shoot their shot. And why wouldn’t they? Catch-all job openings tend to, well, catch all.
Be a little more precise and you’ll catch the kind of fish you’re looking for.
The Job Market is Rough
Seeing things from the candidate side, things are rough out there. As mentioned at the start of this, remote work is fading away for many accounting professionals so yeah, they might be applying to any and every job that mentions even the possibility of remote work. This isn’t really your problem except when it means you’re having to sift through a hundred resumes that don’t come close to meeting your requirements or nice-to-haves.
So, with that said…
While you’re here, why don’t you save yourself the trouble of DIY recruiting and let Accountingfly handle it for you? With remote dedicated search services, they’ll handle the entire hiring process from start to finish, combing through candidates for you until they find the cream of the crop for your consideration.
Reach out to Liz Branch for the hookup and read more about Dedicated Search here to find out what it’s all about. Good luck out there!