Industry Insights

Giles Pearson, Director here at Accountests, explains how important it is to get the hiring process right the first time, and introduces the new Bad Hire Calculator tool, available now on our website. Use the calculator to work out exactly how costly it can be to your business to fix the issue of hiring the wrong candidate.

How’s that personal development plan for your bright young star going? Tough isn’t it? What about the one for the team member who thinks they should be promoted faster than is justified by their performance. Ouch! How about an accountants specific personality profile that comes complete with a personal development plan roadmap? Sound good?

The knock-on effects of unfilled vacancies on existing staff were largely expected by employers, but in reality are alarming. Shorten the time to hire new staff to avoid losing candidates to competing job offers and increase the wellbeing services offered to staff. Accountests can assist in shortening the time to hire new staff with our ‘fast & thorough’ techniques for getting you ahead of candidates competing jobs offers.

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Ryan concludes that accounting firms should treat new hires like any other investment decision – what is the ROI, especially in terms of the tasks this new person will be able to take off the firm owner.  This will likely sway decision making more towards hiring senior rather junior than might otherwise have been the case. Taking the strategic view might result in a different decision than initially considered.

When used effectively, phone-interviews bring all the benefits of identifying the best candidate for the role, without the current risks and expense of bringing candidates in from all over and organizing the resources to accommodate interviews and candidates.  However, they also bring the considerable risk of missing out on great candidates when run ineffectively.

In our continued world of candidate scarcity, I and most of my clients are regularly reviewing selection/vetting processes to ensure they are as effective as possible in screening candidates, which led me to revisit the Transparent Interview. Soft substitute for ‘real’ interviews, or fair and reliable way of consistently measuring a candidate’s performance?

No single recruitment tool will solve all your hiring problems, the reality is that the solution is a combination of tools put together in a thoughtful manner that are backed up by scientific evidence.

International recruitment consultancy Robert Half reported that 46% of the businesses surveyed to develop a recently released report had made a bad hire in the past 12 months, with small businesses feeling the greatest impact.

A good education and an outstanding performance during interview does not equate to a high performing individual. In order to gauge a candidate’s abilities, you need meaningful data. The following three tips will help to keep your recruitment process focused on the data that matters, reduce the effects of bias, and uncover each candidate’s true capabilities.

We’ve recently been hearing more and more about the topic of “candidate commitment” from clients who are dealing with candidates pulling out of final-stage selection processes. You know who I mean; the candidates that seem really interested in a role, say all of the right things and then at the last moment, when you offer them the job, they decide they’re not interested. 

The last year of university is stressful, for the students… and their parents. Just a couple of years ago both my daughters, in their final year of studies, were applying for graduate positions. After dealing with late-night requests to read applications, tears, frustration and finally elation when they received an offer the process has gave me an insight into what works, and what doesn’t.