Recruiting new employees for your accounting team might seem simple enough, but the process is full of complicated challenges, particularly in the current market.
Talent shortages are everywhere, candidate expectations are evolving, and the impact of a poor hiring decision is growing, costing companies not only money but also their time and reputation.
A successful recruiting strategy requires a careful, calculated and considered approach based on understanding the challenges you're likely to face in the quest for the ideal candidates.
In this article, we'll cover some of the most common hiring mistakes businesses are making this year and what you can do to overcome them.
1. Hiring Too Slow
A gap in your accounting team can be extremely detrimental, leading to lost opportunities, diminished team morale, and poor productivity. Unfortunately, even though many hiring managers know this, they delay the recruiting process.
In today's competitive landscape, where the best talent is in high demand, a sluggish hiring process can be detrimental to employers in numerous ways.
Firstly, prolonged hiring timelines can result in missed opportunities to secure skilled candidates, as talented individuals may accept offers from faster-moving competitors.
A slow hiring process can tarnish an employer's reputation, making it appear indecisive or disorganised to potential candidates, which may deter future applicants.
Delaying hiring decisions can hinder an organisation’s ability to innovate and adapt to market changes, putting it at a significant disadvantage compared to its competitors.
Working with an experienced accounting recruitment company and implementing a structured process can help you identify the right people for the role while reducing your chances of making the wrong decision.
Before diving into the recruitment process, ensure you have a clear plan. Determine how you will evaluate candidates (focusing on skills to reduce bias). Think about how you'll manage the screening process and conduct interviews.
2. Neglecting The Impact of Your Employer Branding
In today's skills-short environment, it's more important than ever for companies to "sell themselves" to the ideal candidate. The top accounting talent will likely have plenty of opportunities, and you can't always rely only on a competitive salary package to convince them to choose you.
In addition, focus on presenting yourself as the "ideal employer" with a brand that conveys your focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, supporting employee development, and nurturing an exceptional company culture.
Invest in building your employer brand in various ways. You might start with an active social media profile on LinkedIn, where you share thought leadership content, highlight your employees and demonstrate your accomplishments.
Ask your team members to contribute to your branding by sharing testimonials about their experiences with your business.
3. Relying Solely on Traditional Recruitment Channels
In a skills-short accounting market, business leaders need to be more creative about how they search for candidates. Simply posting job listings on your website or a job board isn't enough to attract the level of talent with the skills your business needs.
A logical strategy is working with experienced accounting recruiters to tap into their network of candidates.
Many employers don't realise that recruiters are mapping the accounting market for the best people daily, so you or your internal talent team don't have to.
4. Overlooking Soft Skills and Cultural Fit
While technical skills and valuable accounting qualifications are undoubtedly essential to choosing the right candidates, they're not the only things worth considering. First, it's more important than ever for organisations to consider the value of transferrable soft skills.
Around 93% of employers say assessing soft skills is critical to choosing the right candidate. Skills like exceptional communication and teamwork will be valuable in any role. Resiliency, agility, and adaptability are becoming increasingly crucial in a dynamic and ever-changing industry.
If you haven't read our blog on recruiting agile employees, you can read it here.
Alongside soft skills, evaluating how each hire will fit into or contribute to your company culture is important. Employees with the same values, priorities, and principles as your existing team members will more easily migrate into their new roles. This can improve employee morale, reduce turnover and increase productivity.
Add behavioural and cultural fit assessments into your hiring process, and prioritise choosing candidates that have the right blend of hard and soft skills, and core attributes.
5. Neglecting Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion are key in today's accounting landscape. Not only do employees prefer companies that demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, but prioritising these factors will also help you build a more effective team.
Diverse teams and inclusive company cultures drive greater innovation and creativity, enhance employee satisfaction, and help your businesses unlock new opportunities. Unfortunately, many accounting employers struggle to nurture diversity and inclusion, thanks to unconscious bias and poorly structured hiring strategies.
Work with a recruitment company to mitigate these issues, using strategies like blind resume screening and diverse interview panels. Consider how you can appeal to a broader selection of candidates with unique benefits and support programs that support well-being. Prioritising diversity and inclusion will increase your talent pool and help you build a more creative and resilient workforce.
6. Failing to Prioritise Candidate Experience
The candidate's experience is one of the most important factors in the hiring process, determining how likely candidates are to accept a job offer. A strong candidate experience helps to shape and augment your employer brand, particularly in a world where candidates regularly review businesses online.
Consider how quickly your team follows up with candidates and keeps them informed throughout the hiring process. Ensuring you write clear and informative job descriptions can improve the candidate experience. Plus, creating comprehensive onboarding and training programs for new hires will help ease them into your company culture and transform them into advocates for your brand.
Overcome Common Hiring Mistakes with the Right Support
Ultimately, there are many hurdles to successfully hiring the ideal accounting employee. If you want to avoid the mistakes listed above, you need a proactive approach to optimising your recruitment strategy.
All the listed strategies will help expand your talent pool, boost your chances of making the right hiring decisions, and pave the way for success.
The right recruitment company can help you enhance your employer brand, diversify your recruitment channels, screen candidates effectively, and foster diversity and inclusion. Plus, they can improve the candidate experience for every professional you interact with.
At Hedley Scott Recruitment we have been helping Accounting and Tax professionals to achieve their career and business goals for over 20 years. If you want to find out how we can help you, call us on 02 8877 8700 or contact us here.