How to Tell (and Sell) Your Accounting Career Story You’re desperate to score a new accounting job. You’ve stagnated and want a new challenge. Maybe a role with more responsibility and better pay – you haven’t had a decent raise for two years. The trouble is that you aren’t receiving invitations to interview. What’s wrong? […]
To build a modern firm, you’ll need to leverage the right technology, automate work, and hire the right team to execute your vision. Hiring is hard enough. So where do you get started on your journey of building the right team for your firm? Join hiring expert Jeff Phillips as he presents an overview of […]
Could you use some help this tax season? Learn how to hire, onboard, and delegate work to remote, U.S.-based seasonal tax preparers and reviewers to make your life easier for the upcoming busy season. Join accounting recruitment expert and AccountingFly CEO, Jeff Phillips, as we lighten your load with proven solutions you can use for […]
You landed an interview for a new accounting job. Congratulations! Odds are that it’s a virtual interview (according to a Gartner Survey in April 2020, 86% of interviews are currently virtual due to coronavirus). Virtual interviews are here to stay, and they are the standard when interviewing for a remote accounting job – the new […]
How do you manage a remote team? And is it different than my office-based team? YES. In 2020 we found ourselves suddenly remote and had to make adjustments on the fly. As you plan your firm’s 2021, we’ll help you optimize your remote accounting team, including how to motivate and manage remote staff, how to […]
Are you looking for best practices managing a remote team? You have come to the right place. On December 21, 2020, Accountingfly Co-Founder Jeff Phillips, walks you through the best practices of finding, selecting, and hiring remote staff, so you’re ready to grow your team. Learn how to optimize your remote accounting team, by motivating […]
How do you manage a remote team? Is it different than my office-based team? YES. On January 25, 2021, Accountingfly Co-Founder Jeff Phillips, walks you through how to optimize your remote accounting team, including how to motivate and manage remote staff, how to organize and communicate with your team, and how to increase productivity. Learning […]
With all of the accounting industry layoffs during the pandemic, your accounting resume is up against tremendous competition. Not only are there more job seekers than usual, many of them are highly qualified. When you’re seeing so many articles about furloughs and firings, it might be tempting to do everything possible to get your name […]
How does managing your team change remotely and how can you be more efficient while embracing the remote workplace? On September 23, 2020, Accountingfly Co-Founder Jeff Phillips, who has managed a virtual company for years, as he shares his best practices to make remote accounting work productive while reducing the stress your team is likely facing trying […]
Ever wanted to know how many applications it takes to fill an accounting job? Or how to write a job description or job posting that drives applies? Or how to avoid losing good candidates after they’ve applied? What are the best practices for hiring accountants? As Accountingfly’s Director of Fulfillment, Beth Dierker has seen it […]
You can stop turning away work by hiring freelance accountants. 25% of the U.S. workforce are freelancers, many of them are experts in accounting and finance. Learn the best ways to find and hire project and seasonal talent that can help you deliver a project, support your team during tax season, or fill in skills […]
Your accounting team is now working from home. Great, now what? How does managing your team change and how can you be more efficient while dealing with new distractions? On August 20, 2020, Accountingfly Co-Founder Jeff Phillips, who has managed a virtual company for years, shared his best practices to make remote accounting work productive while […]
Not to be rude, but over the last few months, we’ve noticed that some of our accounting industry friends are struggling a bit with Zoom or maybe have a team member who needs a friendly reminder – feel free to share this article with them. So we asked our friend Cameron Pearce, Founder of Cross […]
Freelance accountants are the hottest staffing trend in the accounting industry. (Other than remote work. We already get 87 emails a day about remote work and we have a tons more on that topic). This interesting trend in accounting practice management is what Beth Dierker, Head of Fulfillment at Accountingfly, calls “the Uber-ification of the […]
Jeff Phillips, Co-founder of Accountingfly walked through the real applicable tactics to put into practice when it comes to remote working. This includes checking into “the office” and dedicating that you will focus on work, as well as unplugging and going “offline” when you are done. It can be easy to fall into a perpetual […]
Jeff Phillips, Co-founder of Accountingfly walks through how he manages his fully remote team, and what you can be doing to effectively maintain a productive and successful team. We are currently in the remote work and work-from-home era, we are foreseeing remote working, virtual teams, and work-from-home will become a more standardized thing in the […]
Jeff Phillips, Co-founder of Accountingfly walks through how the change to remote work has been easy for some and traumatizing for others. There is no question that it is the hottest topic for companies during COVID (outside of the stimulus package)! We can’t get enough of seeing how companies are faring with handling work-from-home, cloud […]
Are you part of an accounting team currently working from home? On April 8, 2020, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly will give proven ways to help you how to be more productive, manage your remote accounting team, and get your stuff done while dealing with all the distractions you are facing. Have kids? Good, we’ll […]
The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it innumerable challenges from both a business and personal perspective for pretty much everyone and while we could get into many of them, let’s stick to the topic at hand: working from home and setting boundaries. Accountingfly is a fully remote company so we’re used to working from […]
Your accounting team is now working from home. Great, now what? On April 2, 2020, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly explains how to manage the changes your team is facing and how can you be more efficient while dealing with new distractions. Join Jeff, who has managed a virtual company for years, as he shares […]
On March 25, 2020, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly walked through the solution to finding qualified remote accountants is to open up your job search to a U.S. based remote staff who work from anywhere. But not everyone is ready to hire a remote team. Get the gameplan to make your first remote hire and […]
The coronavirus presents the accounting profession with a potentially severe “people problem”, and we wanted to weigh in and advise clients about how to think about your staff given the potential issues ahead. Given the current situation, every accounting firm should be making plans now with two goals in mind: (1) keeping yourself and your […]
You can stop turning away work by hiring freelance accountants. 25% of the U.S. workforce are freelancers, many of them are experts in accounting and finance. On February 17, 2020, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly teaches firm partners the best ways to find and hire freelance accountants that can help you deliver a project, support […]
The way we work has dramatically evolved over the years to an “always on” environment largely due to advancements in technology. Employees, especially millennials and boomers want more flexibility and in return are likely to stay with a firm longer when they can opt to work remote. This can feel intimidating to think about as […]
On April 30, 2019, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly joined YAEGER CPA Review & More’s podcast. In this episode of CPA Review & More Phil interviews Jeff Phillips from Accountingfly, click here to listen.
On April 22, 2019, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly joined Sage Advice’s podcast, click here to listen. Jeff Phillips is an entrepreneur and business leader who has spent the last 19 years in the recruitment industry. He is currently a Co-Founder and CEO of Accountingfly, an online recruitment platform that matches accountants and bookkeepers with full […]
On April 9, 2019, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly joined Playing Above the Line’s podcast, click here to listen. Jeff Phillips is an entrepreneur and business leader who has spent the last 19 years in the recruitment industry. He is currently a Co-Founder and CEO of Accountingfly, an online recruitment platform that matches accountants and bookkeepers […]
Getting paid to sit on a beach in Tahiti or ski a few runs at Whistler Mountain might sound a little too good to be true—if it were 2004. But with the power of reliable Wi-Fi and a trusty laptop, the age-old idea that traveling the world while earning a living is only a fantasy […]
This post is an excerpt from the Accountingfly eBook, “How to Write the Ultimate Accounting Job Posting.” This eBook will teach you how to write more engaging and actionable job postings. Click here to download. Before submitting your accounting job posting, consult this SEO checklist to make sure you’re maximizing traffic and visibility. You’ve used […]
If you’re running a purely cloud or hybrid accounting firm, you’re living in the Wild West. The regulatory and tax laws that will ultimately govern your business haven’t been written yet. It’s impossible to prepare for the legal and liability issues you’ll face one, five, or 10 years down the road. And as such, the […]
This post is an excerpt from the Accountingfly eBook, “How to Write the Ultimate Accounting Job Posting.” This eBook will teach you how to write more engaging and actionable job postings. Click here to download. There are many approaches to writing a successful accounting job posting, so sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. […]
Hopefully by now you’ve got a remote accountant policy firmly in place. If not, check out some of our older blogs for legal steps you need to take before making your first remote accountant hire and six things your remote accountant policy should include. But before you start deploying a full-scale cloud accountant army, there’s another […]
We live in an age of glowing rectangles, buzzing smartphones, and unlimited entertainment options. It’s the era of TL;DR, where innumerable sources of work and fun are constantly vying for our attention. Through email, text messages, news articles, advertisements, and industry reports for work, we’re bombarded with thousands of words a day. We couldn’t read […]
It’s no secret that hiring accountants is a buyers market. While the number of accountants in the U.S. is increasing, demand is outpacing the supply, particularly when it comes to CPAs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of accountants and auditors is expected to grow 10% by 2026, which is faster than the […]
In a previous blog, we talked about some legal steps you need to take before bringing on your first remote hire. We outlined a few basic components you should include in your remote accountant policy, but we kept things pretty general. Hopefully by now you have a remote accountant policy firmly in place. But as […]
We, for one, welcome our new computer overlords. You’ve already surrendered many HR and internal accounting tasks to the gods of automation. Should marketing be next on the list? Well … maybe. Many of your peers have made the leap. Marketing automation software generated $3.86 billion in 2016 and is projected to earn up to $7.63 […]
Over the last few months, Facebook has been relentlessly pushing its Workplace by Facebook platform, expanding the app’s feature list while ramping up its marketing. Its most recent PR blitz occurred this past June, as Facebook unveiled the company’s new Workplace for Good program, touting free access to Workplace Premium for nonprofits and educational institutions among […]
Over the last few months, we’ve provided you with a lot of great content about remote accounting. From what to do before you make your first remote hire to helping your remote workers stay productive to deciding between a pure virtual or hybrid model, we’ve given you a lot of tools that will help you […]
As you move your accounting firm more into the cloud and rely more on virtual employees, you’ll need to use virtual communication apps to stay in touch with workers and clients, keep everyone on the same page, and ensure key benchmarks are being met on time. But with the wealth of virtual communication app options […]
Everyone is talking about analytics these days. As we gather more info about our customers, we need to find ways to turn that data into insights that drive stronger decision making. The conversation used to be about big data. That was a discussion about how to properly store the massive amounts of customer demographics and […]
On June 14, 2018, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly joined Jetpack Workflow’s podcast. Jeff Phillips, a co-founder of Accountingfly and publisher at accounting blog, Going Concern, has been in the recruiting business for over 20 years. He’s about to reveal how to attract 50X more qualified job applicants, click here to listen. Because, in today’s […]
As your firm transitions toward the cloud and remote accounting, what does the end result look like? Should you be moving toward a purely virtual model, abandoning the traditional office completely and connecting to each other and clients purely through technology? Or is a hybrid approach smarter, with some work occurring virtually but some still […]
We’re rapidly approaching the point where nearly all traditional accounting firms are operating some part of their business in the cloud, or are at least planning to do so soon. And we know there are a growing number of “cloud-only” firms that operate exclusively through web-based software, many of which don’t have a physical office. […]
You know by now that the remote revolution is upon us. Workers are embracing work-from-home options and flooding to the gig economy in droves. According to a 2017 report, 3.9 million employees currently work from home at least half the time. That’s a 115% increase in remote workers since 2005. But misconceptions about remote work […]
We live in an age of constant distraction–especially for those who work at home. TV, videogames, Netflix, and more are all within an arm’s reach. And that’s not to mention the ultimate time stealer: the smartphone. How many times have you picked up your smartphone for legitimate business and wound up spending $0.99 on the […]
Maybe you’re interested in moving some or all of your accounting firm into the cloud, but you’re stuck with a lingering question: How do I organize my team in a way that will maximize the benefits of the cloud? Cloud accounting teams are typically a mix of freelance per diem workers performing gig assignments, permanent […]
Google “cloud accounting firm,” and what do you get? A bunch of ads for businesses promising “flexible deployment,” “integrated systems,” and “remote capabilities.” What you won’t find is a real definition of the term. So we’ve gathered insights from some of the world’s leading experts on the subject and combined them with our own knowledge […]
So you think you’re ready to join the craze and hire your first remote accounting employee. But are you really ready? Really, really legally, every contract signed, every hypothetical planned for, every policy in place ready? Even if you’ve been spending months preparing for your first remote hire, you still may have missed a critical […]
Last year, IBM decided to “co-locate” its 2,600 member US marketing department. Translation? IBM is eliminating remote work. The news is especially shocking as IBM is one of the pioneers of remote work, installing work-from-home terminals for some employees as far back as the 1980s. As more businesses move toward embracing remote work, others are resisting the […]
Hear that? It’s the sound of a new business starting. And if you can pinpoint exactly what that sound is (a car engine revving, maybe?), you’ll hear it about 450,000 more times this year. (Now, admittedly, that number is a 40-year low for the US, and overall entrepreneurship is down, at least based on the 2014 […]
On March 7, 2018, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly joined Blake Oliver and FloQast’s podcast. On Episode 6 of the podcast, I’m joined by Jeff Phillips of Accountingfly, a site for accountants and finance professionals to apply easily to hundreds of great jobs, click here to listen. Topics discussed: The four drivers of workaholism, and […]
Picture the remote worker. Is he in his PJs, waking up at noon, getting in an hour of work between his favorite soap operas? Is she isolated on some distant planet, beaming projects to your office across intergalactic satellites, a faceless drone whose physical appearance is a mystery to coworkers and bosses alike? Remote working […]
Articles about how millennials are changing (or per your perspective, ruining,) the business world are everywhere. I even wrote one myself. And I stand by everything I wrote in that blog. You do have to change some things about your business to recruit millennials. But one of those things isn’t viewing millennials as alien beings who […]
In the information economy, data has become the lifeblood of business. (Yes, we realize the previous sentence is today’s ultimate biz blog cliche, but hey, some things are cliche because they’re true.) Accounting firms feel the impact of this transition with a degree of severity far greater than other industries. Risking the sensitive financial and […]
Ever feel like you’re stuck in a cycle of upsizing and downsizing your employee roster? Busy season hits, more clients sign up, workloads increase, and you enthusiastically bring on new accountants to pick up the slack. But then the inevitable happens: clients leave, projects disappear, and workers have to be let go.
Writing great accounting job postings is a lot like writing an ad. You don’t have to be as silly as a beer commercial, but you do have to be memorable.
To land the best prospects, you need to offer real benefits that employees want. Everything else is just window dressing. Read on to discover the top employee perks that will truly accelerate your recruiting.
Ask moms and dads across the accounting industry why firms should offer competitive maternity leave, and you’ll likely get the same answer. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
On October 11, 2017, Jeff Phillips, CEO of Accountingfly joined Thriveal’s podcast. In Episode 76, Jason Blumer and Greg Kyte discuss the emotional side of growing a firm beyond yourself (via The Emyth). How should an entrepreneur handle the business having needs of its own? Jeff Phillips from Accountingfly and Going Concern then joins them […]
Remote working is on the rise. In 2016, 22% of American employees did at least some of their work from home. And for those with advanced degrees over the age of 25, the number is even higher—a full 43% reported working remotely at least some of the time. It may feel natural to some accounting […]
Salary, benefits, vacation time—these are all important factors that will determine your firm’s ability to attract and retain high-quality accounting talent. But perhaps the most important factor is one that’s often overlooked: company culture. So how do you determine the current culture at your business? And if you don’t like what you find, how do […]
Whether its because they’re truly fascinating or simply due to the era of widespread and constant communication we currently live in, millennials are without doubt the most analyzed generation in human history. Depending on whom you listen to, millennials are either spoiled, entitled brats or motivated, ambitious big thinkers. They’re either killing the economy or […]
As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, the accounting recruitment world is a seller’s market. To land the top recruits, you need to actively market your brand and make your firm attractive above other companies competing for mindshare. At Accountingfly, we deal with the recruitment and placement of accounting professionals every day. And the #1 complaint […]
Across nearly every industry, project-based or “non-recurring” jobs are on the rise. Millennials in particular are starting to abscond the traditional 9-5 workday, preferring to work on a freelance basis. The accounting industry is no different. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a surge in temporary, project-based, and seasonal accounting employment. To shed some […]
There are many factors that affect the hiring process for accounting and financial professionals. But we’ve found that two of the most important ones, branding and content, aren’t considered strongly enough by most hiring organizations. This blog explores why branding and content are so vital in making better hires, and offers best practices on how […]
Meeting CPA staffing needs is a great challenge and there are plenty of options that are vying for your attention. There are dozens of recruiting agencies out there like Robert Half, the Lucas Group, and Ranstad. And there are online services such as job boards and LinkedIn. These services are fine for recruiting in some […]
In a recent column, we talked about the relationship between onboarding and recruiting. That discussion relates to all firms. Virtual firms face onboarding/recruiting issues, too, but with components traditional brick-and-mortar firms don’t encounter. We spoke with Jason Blumer, managing partner of Blumer CPAs, to talk about how onboarding works in a firm like his. “The […]
Here’s a chicken-or-egg question for you: Is onboarding a part of recruiting or is it a totally separate process? The war for talent adds importance to the issue of whether onboarding is part of recruiting or is a separate endeavor. You know what differentiates your firm from other firms. It’s part of your firm’s tagline, […]
Recently I wrote about the importance of being aware of body language during an interview. Body language creates a picture of who you are—Confident or nervous? Extroverted or introverted? Happy and open? These are cues interviewers look for. But it works both ways. Interviewees are equally interested in your firm’s “body language.” That, too, paints […]
A recent Accountingfly poll of students and young CPA’s revealed that work life balance is more important than compensation when it comes to selecting an employer. This should serve as a wake up call – if you want to get and keep the best, your organization should take steps to increase work life balance for […]
The way your team manages new candidates has a lasting impact not only on your ability to make the hire, but also on how long they stay with you. What’s required is a new process — a simple repeatable formula you can follow, and teach to your team, that leads to better hires and better […]
Tech savvy | Always connected | Ambitious | Self-focused | Eager to learn | Don’t like to waste time | Entrepreneurial | Freedom-loving | Good multi-taskers | Feel respect should be earned by actions not titles | Want frequent feedback and validation | Fun-loving According to Jonathan Ebenstein, Partner/Managing Director, Marketing, at Skoda Minotti these traits are commonly exhibited by Millennials. “Their concerns have to be […]
What do the best public accounting job seekers want in their next job?Knowing these answers can help you recruit for success. Accountingfly CEO Jeff Phillips reviews the results of the Accountingfly/Going Concern 2016 Job Seeker Survey and covers the most important factors that Senior and Manager candidates are expecting from their next employer. Jeff also […]
We all know things are changing in accounting. There have been many stories about how audits are a commodity and how tax software has made it easy and convenient for individuals to prepare their own tax returns. Successful firms don’t compete on price alone because they understand that is not a winning proposition. They look […]
“Anxiety” should be a synonym for “performance review”. The process alone can make you break out in hives. How do you rate yourself? Too high and you could appear arrogant or out of touch. Too low and you could be setting yourself up for a lower rating than you really deserve. Not having the option […]
We have a saying about the recruitment issues facing public accounting, and while I’m certain we didn’t come up with it, we’re stealing it anyway: The race for talent is over. And the talent won. If you expect to hire, and more importantly keep high performers, you should know by now the talent has won. […]
Earlier this year we teamed up with Gusto to produce the 2016 Ultimate Recruiting Guide For Public Accounting Employers. In this webinar we present some key findings and important strategies from the guide that are needed to improve the culture within your team to attract and retain talent. Learn the latest tactics and technologies to source […]
Firms must adapt to meet the needs of talent in order to recruit the best and part of that means using the latest and greatest technology. The tools your firm uses can attract or repel talent. Amy Vetter is Xero’s Global Vice President of Education & Head of Accounting and has owned her own firm. […]
Jeff Phillips, recruitment marketing professional and CEO of Accountingfly, walks through the top 5 strategies you need in play to attract high performers to your firm. In conjunction with the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM).
Culture. It’s an important topic. And the reality is, most firms could use a little help in the culture department. So we called in an expert, just for you! In this webinar, Kristen Rampe, of Kristen Rampe Consulting, leads a discussion on the best practices for creating a relevant culture at your firm. Topics covered include: […]
Pershing Yoakley & Associates (PYA) is a national leader in providing professional services to the healthcare industry. They are a multi-office firm based in the Southeast and like most firms, are working hard to attract scarce lateral talent. They rely on job boards, headhunters, and Accountingfly to deliver leads to hire. In the Summer of […]
You’ve probably heard the old adage about the importance of giving children roots and wings. You’ve probably also heard that the roots are the easy part—they are your values—and that the wings are not so easy. Sometimes you have to let them go and wait for them to come back, like a boomerang. Strangely, it’s […]
It’s important that you understand what’s going on in the labor market for CPAs. Lots of accounting firm partners have unrealistic expectations about hiring high performers. It takes much longer and will cost more than you think it will, and it’s not as simple as posting a job and praying that a high performer applies. […]
“R u hiring? If so, give me a call.” Okay, that was a text message received by an HR manager in retail, not accounting, but it made us think about the well-documented shortage of accountants seeking a career in public accounting. Is there really a talent shortage, or is there just a disconnect between what […]
Busy season is around the corner, and if you’re looking for seasonal CPA talent, we’ll show you what you can do quickly to make key hires.
Accountingfly CEO Jeff Phillips presents his checklist for finding your next generation of leaders. That means being the kind of workplace millennial accountants want to join and communicating your employer brand the way young accountants digest career information. Jeff also reviews how to make the most of Meet The Firms Week 2015 (October 19-23) and […]
Recently, Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People opined on the most pressing issues facing our profession. Many of them talked about issues around talent. In fact, talent came up a lot. Here are some that got our attention: –Joe Adams, Managing Partner & CEO, McGladrey: In addition to firms taking individual action to […]
Accountingfly, the career center to the Accounting profession, was honored last week when its Co-Founder and CEO, Jeff Phillips, was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential People by Accounting Today. Team Accountingfly is honored by this recognition, appearing alongside many of our friends, partners and role models in the profession. The article recognizes Phillips […]
Recruitment marketing guru and co-founder of Accountingfly, Jeff Phillips, discusses how firms can land top CPA talent by developing a simple recruitment marketing strategy.
Firms everywhere are struggling to cope with the “Choose Your Own Adventure” approach millennials (and millennials at heart) take with their careers. Who are these brazen young kids that boldly shun the traditional career paths that decades of faithful CPAs have so nicely blazed for them? More importantly, how do we recruit/develop and retain these […]
In my 12 years of running my own CPA firm, perhaps the most controversial thing I’ve done has been to close my office. It’s been three years now since we began operating as a virtual firm with no offices, no paper, and no physical contact with clients. I wasn’t sure we could pull it off, […]
Work/life balance (impossible in this 24/7/365 world) Generational change (inevitable) Corporate social responsibility (worthy and workable) Here’s the thing: There isn’t much down time in our busy lives. For many of us, time off only happens in micro-doses, so we need to feel fulfillment in all areas of our lives – including (maybe especially) our […]
It’s frustrating. It’s challenging. It’s discouraging. Wondering what are we talking about? It’s job posts that don’t work. Yes, the talent pool is small, but some firms are getting responses to their job posts. Here are some things you can do to make sure your firm is one of them:
Why do people change jobs? What are they really looking for? What will make your firm attractive to them? Recruiters ask themselves these questions on a daily basis, and so should you. Some of the answers to these questions are practical: a better work environment higher salary more opportunity for advancement We’ve all heard this list so […]