When you’re looking for people to hire for your business, you want to get some that are exceptionally good with numbers. Finance staffing is a crucial part of putting together your workforce, since you need financial analysts who can track certain trends. The finance department is the real heartbeat of a company, since the numbers are what will raise or sink you. That’s why you need to really hit a home run when it comes to bringing accounting and finance professionals aboard. But how can you do it? Before you start contacting staffing agencies, here are a few things you should keep in mind:
Know What Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Is
This might sound like one of those new types of sports statistics where a person’s value is broken down into something tangible. This isn’t one of those things – you’re figuring out what type of company you are going to be. You’re going to set your values and what you’re all about so that anyone who interviews you will have a clear idea of what you’re all about. Maybe you could find out later if they could help your team in the company softball or basketball league.
Have Your Brief Ready
Now you know what you’re all about as a company. Still, before you even go on Google and type in “staffing agency accounting,” you should have an idea of the person that you want to hire. It’s not a good idea to be a perfectionist when it comes to listing the qualities that you want out of any potential employee. Just like dating, there isn’t one perfect person. No one candidate is going to hit every single mark on the brief. You’re going to have to have some areas where you’re willing to bend. Otherwise, you could find yourself looking for a lot longer than you’d like.
Create a Good Campaign
There are a lot of different ways to alert people that you’re hiring in the finance industry. It’s a lot more in-depth than just putting hiring ads on sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and others. That’s a great way to get a lot of people who aren’t qualified to apply. Your email inbox will not be happy with you. Instead, you can look through your network on those sites and see if they might know of people that are accounting and finance professionals who might fit your criteria.
You can also embrace social media and send out feelers that way or even create unique videos. Yes, there can be ways to make finance exciting if the video is well put together. You could even tag a finance staffing agency if you want.
Have a Plan
This is one thing that bogs companies down. They don’t have a concrete plan when it comes to creating a pipeline as employers that will streamline the process. As the hiring professionals, you need to have all of this prepared before you even think of putting out any job ads or contacting any accounting staffing agency. Know when you want to have people sitting at a desk after an interview — you may have to give them time to tender any notice at their old job. But not having something in mind is just a recipe for a lot of lost opportunities. Which leads to the next point.
Focus on Your Interview Techniques
You want to have a good process when it comes to interviewing accounting talent. This is something that has a lot of pitfalls on both sides. It can be a grueling part of the day for the interviewer, but it’s equally nerve-wracking for the interviewee.
Preparation is key. You should know everything about the job postings and tailor the interview that way. There have been a lot of stories about cookie-cutter interviews. Break that mold. Talk to them as a human being, not just Interviewee No. 14 on the day. If you get a reputation as a place that gives fair interviews, then that can attract more accounting talent from finance staffing agencies.
You also need to know what you are looking for. Do you want someone who has won numerous awards? Do you want a financial analyst? What sort of career opportunities are you offering? Finance staffing can be very complex.
Be Fast with Your Post-Interview Communication
This is part of the plan. You’ve got the attention of a lot of potentially good candidates that have a specific skill that you. They came and interviewed you or the agency sent a list of candidates. Now they need you to be responsive. We’re in the age of smartphones, which means that a lot of people want to get answers fast. You don’t want to have a promising employee get off the line and go look elsewhere for a job because they got a lot of other replies from other companies. The days of job reply letters being sent in the mail are gone, and they are not going to come back.
You should respond to either the candidate directly or talk to someone from the finance staffing agency. The people from these agencies also don’t like being left hanging. If you get a bad reputation at finance staffing agencies, then you might have a very hard time getting any candidates at all.
The main thing is to not get intimidated by the hiring process, especially if this is your first time in this position. Think things through and use the above hacks and lean on using a finance staffing agency to help fill in some gaps while you get your feet set under you. These finance staffing agencies, or other staffing agencies, especially ones that have been around for a long time, can help guide you in terms of candidates, too. They can pinpoint what specific skills potential
Be Quick to Make Changes
There’s a saying about the hiring process, “Be fast to hire. Be fast to fire.” This may sound cold. After all, it’s talking about changing a human being’s life for the worse. But it’s better for both you and the employee. You can’t wrap your ego in that, admitting that you were wrong with candidates when you hired them. It’s a bit easier if it was someone who was sent from a staffing agency, since they were the ones that vetted the accounting professionals, but it’s still a blow.
By doing this, you’re giving yourself a chance to right a wrong extremely fast. That’s not to say you do it nastily or in any way that is illegal that would get the federal government involved. Be sure to get human resources involved so that you can cover your bases. Accounting staffing, like many other things, is not an exact science. Don’t beat yourself up over mistakes. Just be proactive and look for any signs that you might repeat it when you talk to new candidates.
If you hang on too long, then you put not only yourself at a disadvantage, but you also will have someone not fulfilling their best potential. If you do this the correct way, then it can lead to both of you succeeding. It also gives you a chance to go back out and find top talent that has career goals that align with what you want to do as a company. You can point out what you don’t want this time to accounting staffing agencies, which could help the process.
Remember, this is just one part of hiring people at a business. Unless it’s an accounting firm, then that will be the bulk of the people that a finance staffing agency will need to send your way. Either way, you should enjoy everything.
The best way you can view it is that it will be one of the many challenges that you will face … and surmount. Employment solutions come through trial and error, and they can come from networking, interviews, and accounting staffing firms. Just take whatever lessons you learn on the way and use them to continue to grow as both a company and as an employer yourself. Almost all businesses go through this, and if you persevere through these hacks, you will have earned your success. You will look back at what you’ve done and be proud.
