81 CAS Growth: How To Find Top Talent In CAS

🚀 Rethinking Hiring in CAS: How to Build a Talent Pipeline | CAS Minute

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📢 The traditional hiring model for accounting firms is broken. Posting a job, filtering resumes, and hoping for the best doesn’t work when top talent is already employed. In this episode, we break down:

✔️ Why a reactive hiring approach is failing CAS firms

✔️ How to attract top talent through branding & messaging

✔️ Why adaptability is more important than accounting skills

✔️ How to build a recruiting pipeline instead of scrambling to hire

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 - Why Traditional Hiring in Accounting is Broken

00:19 - The Best CAS Talent is Already Employed—So What Now?

00:50 - The Power of a Hiring Pipeline vs. Reactive Recruiting

01:08 - Shrinking Talent Pool: Why Compensation Alone Won’t Fix It

02:27 - Recruiting Like Sales: Branding & Messaging to Attract Talent

03:12 - Skills That Matter Most: Adaptability Over Accounting Degrees

04:13 - Expanding the Talent Pool: Why Multidisciplinary Backgrounds Matter

05:28 - Compensation vs. Culture: What Younger Talent Actually Wants

06:09 - Always Be Recruiting: Why Hiring is an Ongoing Process

06:51 - Your Next Hire Might Not Be an Accountant—And That’s Okay

07:53 - How to Get Started: Building a Talent List on LinkedIn

✅ Key Takeaways:

✔️ Hiring reactively doesn’t work—build a recruiting pipeline instead.

✔️ The best CAS professionals prioritize adaptability & problem-solving over degrees.

✔️ Brand perception matters—top candidates want mission-driven firms.

✔️ Hiring should be a continuous process, not just when you need a role filled.

✔️ Your next great hire might not be an accountant—expand your search.

📢 How do you approach hiring in your firm? Comment below!

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Full Send | Accounting & Data

LinkedIn: Roman Villard, CPA
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hiring in the accounting space is kind of broken. We're taking models of old traditional approaches to try to source the best talent for our firms. Now, what I can tell you is that by posting a job, filtering through resumes, going through an interview process is probably not gonna yield the best results for your firm.

[00:00:19] Why? That's because the best talent in accounting are already busy. They're already working at places that they like because they are in high demand.

[00:00:28] So how do we rethink hiring from the ground up to build the best team possible? Because we all know that people are the driving force behind success For each of our accounting firm's, CAS practices and ultimately success in the market, we want to develop an approach that has a repeatable pipeline of high quality candidates that can slot in when you are ready.

[00:00:50] We don't want to build an approach where it's like, oh, do we need to hire now? Let's post a role source the candidates, because that's a very reactive way to hire. You wanna get ahead of that. So we're gonna walk through five practical ways that you can change the way in which you approach recruiting and hiring to build a better CAS practice.

[00:01:08] So we all know that the talent pool is shrinking. Yeah. The number of CPA applicants and accounting graduates has declined for a decade, more than a decade. I think we've seen a slight uptick in the accounting, undergraduate enrollments, which is good, but that doesn't solve the problem today. So how are we thinking about navigating a recruitment process when the talent pool is shrinking? Most CAS firms and most of what you see in the media today are, well, we just need to increase compensation and that's gonna do it.

[00:01:35] And most firms aren't actually even doing that. But when you look at that in a binary manner, compensation alone isn't what's gonna help you attract the right talent. Yes, it is a big part of it. However.

[00:01:46] You need to be looking at recruitment through the lens of how are we attracting talent? So what are we putting out in the market that would encourage somebody to look at us and say, that's a place that I wanna work. So we're talking about things like branding, messaging, Your mission, your vision, your values, like how, how are you displaying that in a way that somebody would look at it and say, that's where I want to be? So how are you messaging to an audience to create a pipeline without you even going to market for a role? I. we're looking at this through the lens of a sales process really, because in the sales process, you constantly want to have a pipeline of prospective clients to come into your firm, and then you can kind of throttle the speed at which they go through the sales process.

[00:02:27] Similarly, in recruitment, you want to have a pipeline of folks that could or are interested in working at your firm. By nature of doing that, you've already created a better connective tissue between the needs that you may have on the hiring side. And who you could potentially pull into your firm and not be too reliant on just posting a role and hoping that the best fish swim into the net.

[00:02:49] Another realization that I've made is ultimately hiring in CAS is. Maybe a little bit less about hard skill sets and like hard accounting knowledge, and it's probably a little bit more about adaptability and ability to solve problems. How, how are individuals thinking through issues that come up? Are they able to source solutions independently and come to the table with.

[00:03:12] Uh, a slew of answers that could solve somebody's problem. I would rather gear more towards that skillset of adaptability and critical thinking rather than the hard skill of debits and credits. Now, it is important to have a base layer of skill that's important, but when you index more towards quality of.

[00:03:31] Thinking and quality of problem solving. You open up the pool a little bit to the types of people that could come in. You have to think about this a little bit atypically because most firms would say, I want a four year degree in accounting. Maybe a CPA required an X number of years working for an accounting firm that by nature of a description of somebody to bring into your business, Doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually gonna be pulling in the best person to sit in a more advisory capacity. So we need to rethink how we're actually having conversations with folks in our recruitment pipeline to bring into the firm. Because you want to ensure that the net is wide enough while also ensuring that you're bringing in the right quality that can adapt to the changing environment that is cas.

[00:04:13] So just by nature of reframing the who it will. Enable you to better understand the, how they get the job done.

[00:04:20] And one quick note on that, I, I am looking more at multidisciplinary backgrounds. So folks that have an experience across a range of different industries or experiences, maybe that's starting in tax, then working in cas, then working in industry, uh, and then asking questions like, Hey, tell me about a time that you've had to learn something new on the fly.

[00:04:38] How did you accomplish that? What was the result of it? And then how are you applying that framework moving forward? Asking questions like that really helps you gauge whether or not somebody does have the adaptability to step into a CAS role.

[00:04:49] I hit on compensation earlier on. There is a need to increase salaries in the accounting profession. We've recognized that they've really not, uh, paced with inflation as much as you would think, uh, and haven't paced with other, other industries that are drawing people from accounting into engineering or into product development and things like that.

[00:05:07] However, I do believe that there's a. Bit of an over-indexing on compensation being the problem statement. A lot of folks that are earlier on in their careers, they want to attach themselves to a mission. They wanna attach themselves to a brand. They want to attach themselves to an organization that they can feel really comfortable and confident in, and be proud of.

[00:05:28] It's one of those things that, you know, you, you may think is really. Entry level, but a lot of accounting firms don't have that kind of brand that people early in their careers like really want to latch onto. Sad but true. So you need to focus on that alongside of compensation in order to create an environment that people want to be a part of.

[00:05:47] That will, again, help the pipeline that you have of recruits coming into your business.

[00:05:52] Now when we talk about that pipeline, we're looking at it through the lens again, of a sales process. So we're not just looking at it through the lens of discreetly filling a role. Hey, uh, we need excess capacity. We brought on this new client where our team is stressed. Let's post a role. It's you have to have a pipeline mentality.

[00:06:09] So when that need arises. It's not a blitz to try to find somebody, get them in, and then get them up to speed as quickly as possible. That will yield oftentimes a more challenging onboarding process that may end up burning somebody out. So if we take a pipeline mindset towards recruiting.

[00:06:25] It effectively means that we're kind of always in hiring mode. You're always looking out for opportunities of people that may be a good fit for your organization, and the communication track may be a, Hey, we don't necessarily have an open role today, but I'd love to stay in touch with you and keep you up to date on if and when those roles do arise and or just being super helpful to them and.

[00:06:46] Pointing them somewhere else and just maintaining those positive relationships that ultimately could fuel a pipeline in the future.

[00:06:51] So here's the last insight that I think may be a little bit outside of the box, but could be helpful to you. Your next hire may not be an accountant. If you think outside of the box and think where the CA space is going, where accounting advisory is going, you may have better luck finding somebody that's coming into the firm from banking, from data analysis from.

[00:07:13] A consulting or operations background, those may be the best fits to solve the types of problems that your clients are having. If we look at it so narrowly through the lens of just accounting and finance, we again may not be casting the net wide enough to capture the type of thinkers that we need in our organization to be successful.

[00:07:32] So think outside of the box here if you, if you. Narrow the search. So specifically based on the requirements for a role like an accounting degree, like a CPA, like a couple of years of experience working in an accounting firm, you may actually not be casting the net in the right area to solve the problems that your clients and or you internally as an an organization have.

[00:07:53] So a super quick way to get started here and start thinking about recruiting through a pipeline mindset is just by taking a look on LinkedIn, filtering a search based on maybe years of experience based on roles or titles, and then just kind of narrowing down a list to say, Hey, I think these like 10, 15, 100 people fit the criteria of what.

[00:08:12] Problems we have that could be solved through this search that we're setting up. And so just by nature of having a search, saving it in Sales Navigator, if you're on LinkedIn Premium and use Sales Navigator, you can then have a, a bank of individuals that could fit that profile that you could start reaching out to more proactively.

[00:08:31] Because you know that if you're just posting a role, you're gonna find the people that are actively looking for a role. In that moment. And the best people may not be looking for a role because they are high value for the companies that they're at. So if you can start just by segmenting a quick list on LinkedIn that will set you up for success.

[00:08:48] As you start to build this pipeline, you could reach out to folks even and say, Hey, just wanted to tell you about our firm. Here's what we're up to. Uh, would love to meet you. And just very simply leave it at that and start it as more of like a, a, a networking exercise. Building your network of folks that could potentially join your firm.

[00:09:05] So I hope those things are helpful in thinking about recruiting in a bit of a different lens, and I hope that helps you be a little bit more successful, build a more profitable and sustainable firm this year. Till next time.