BDO Recruitment accounting and finance tax professionals

Where are all the Tax Professionals gone?

If you are looking to hire additional members to your team, regardless of your industry/sector, the reality is that it is currently a challenge to source suitable people for roles.

However this is not a surprise to anyone with our unemployment rate is extremely low at just 4.8% in January 2020.

So what positions have we found to be the most challenging to ‘fill’?

  • Tax positions in both Industry & Practice
  • Contract Finance positions for Qualified Accountants with 1 – 8 years post qualification experience
  • Qualified Accountant permanent positions for those with 1 – 4 years post qualification experience

 

In this article, I will discuss the challenge of looking to ‘fill’ Tax positions in the Limerick/Clare region
A number of factors over the past 5 years that have culminated in any Tax position being challenging to fill;

  • Lower number of Tax Trainees undertaking & passing Professional Exams in Accountancy Firms relative to the year on year increase in the volume of Compliance arising in both Industry & Practice and the growing number of Tax Planning assignments being received by Accountancy Firms due to the buoyant Economy
  • Aggressive retention strategies (eg Salary + Benefits + Flexible work arrangements) being adopted by the Accountancy Firm once the Tax Trainee passes their exams and become Tax Professionals
  • Inertia on the part of Qualified Tax Professionals to move due to being comfortable in the surrounding / organisation / routine of the Accountancy Firm they trained in

The 3 motivators for considering a move
When we speak to Tax Professionals (who are predominately working within Accountancy Firms) they have listed the following 3 reasons why they might consider a move from their current position;

  • A slightly better ‘balance’ between the volume of work they are expected to undertake and the number of productive hours in a day (as most Tax Professionals in Practice work a regular 45+ hour work week … which is only 1.5 hours per week day above the normal 9:00am-5:30pm)
  • More resources (ie more Tax Trainees & Qualified Tax Professionals) on the Teams that they work in to help spread the work-load
  • More interesting work

The reason that Salary and Benefits are not one of these 3 motivating factors is that they know that their skills are in demand and that they will, in all probability, meet or exceed their current salary … given the current “Jobs Market”

What you can do as a Hiring Manager
So when you are seeking to attract a Qualified Tax Professional to your Team/Organisation, keeping the 3 reasons outlined above in mind when presenting your Opportunity. This will help to ensure that you are doing everything you can to attract the best Talent out there in this current Candidate Shortage Market.

BDO Recruitment specialises in sourcing candidates for permanent and temporary positions across the disciplines of Accounting and Finance, Executive Appointments, and Support Staff.

Contact Donal at dhanrahan@bdo.ie

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