Industry Insights

When two top candidates make it to the final stage, choosing between them can be surprisingly difficult — and waiting too long risks losing both. To decide with confidence, take a long-term view by considering each candidate’s future growth potential, not just their ability to fill today’s needs. Look closely at cultural fit by having them interact with your team to see who aligns best with your workplace environment. Use objective testing — technical, cognitive, and personality — to gain an evidence-based comparison beyond interviews and résumés. And if both candidates are truly outstanding, consider whether hiring both could be a strategic advantage, depending on budget and workload. If you do select only one, keep the other warm through ongoing connection, as they may be a strong future hire.

The blog outlines two effective ways to integrate pre-hire testing into your recruitment process to improve decision-making and reduce time spent on unsuitable candidates. Both strategies lead to faster, more focused hiring and can result in offers being made within a week. The post invites readers to share their hiring processes via a LinkedIn poll and offers support for firms wanting help with testing.

New research challenges the belief that people peak professionally in their 20s or 30s. While fluid intelligence declines early, traits that matter most in real-world performance—like crystallized intelligence, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and moral reasoning—reach their highest levels much later. The study shows overall human functioning peaks between ages 55 and 60, placing individuals 40 to 65 in the prime range for complex, high-responsibility roles. For employers, this means rethinking age bias, valuing experienced talent, strengthening retention of older workers, and ensuring leadership development continues well into midlife.

Hiring managers often struggle to get specific, practical insights from personality profiles—like whether a candidate will work independently, embrace technology, or adapt to change. Accountests has developed a quick-reference table that connects common business concerns with the relevant Big Five personality traits measured in their Accountants Personality Profile Questionnaire (APPQ). The table highlights which traits to examine for issues such as business development, leadership, adaptability, and AI-readiness, along with the risks of scoring too low or too high on each. This tool helps employers interpret personality reports more effectively, tailor interview questions, and plan onboarding strategies.

AI tools that claim high accuracy in detecting “cheating” during video interviews often exaggerate their capabilities. A so-called 90% accuracy rate still means a 10% error margin—potentially labeling one in ten innocent candidates as dishonest. False positives erode trust, damage employer brands, and filter out the very talent businesses need most. The real benchmark for any hiring tech: accuracy, fairness, and freedom from bias.If a tool can’t prove those, it doesn’t belong in your hiring process.

Many accounting firms fear that testing might drive candidates away. In reality, firms using testing effectively find the opposite — it attracts stronger candidates, improves engagement, and speeds up hiring. By clearly explaining the purpose and benefits of testing, firms create a more focused, fair, and positive recruitment experience. Testing allows candidates to demonstrate their abilities in new ways, helps employers tailor onboarding and training, and leads to faster, higher-quality hires. When done right, testing becomes a secret hiring weapon that boosts both candidate experience and long-term retention.

Proctoring — the act of supervising exams to prevent cheating — has evolved from in-person monitoring to sophisticated online methods. With remote work and online hiring assessments now common, ensuring test integrity has become critical. Employers must confirm that candidates complete tests honestly and without outside help, as misuse of tools like Google or AI can distort results. Accountests notes that cheating attempts are rare but detectable through test data patterns.

The blog highlights Bloom’s Taxonomy as a framework for crafting objectives across six cognitive levels—remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating—to ensure a range of skills and behaviors are developed. It also distinguishes between objectives, which outline expected achievements during instruction, and learning outcomes, which reflect what learners actually demonstrate afterward. By aligning clear objectives with measurable outcomes, and using tools like Bloom’s Taxonomy, organizations can design purposeful, results-driven learning experiences that enhance learner growth and track progress effectively.

Hiring accounting graduates is tricky since they often lack real-world knowledge, so success depends on their ability to learn quickly, think critically, and adapt. A Critical Reasoning Test helps firms spot these traits by showing how candidates handle data, ambiguity, errors, logic, and communication. Without it, firms risk misstatements, rework, missed deadlines, and rigid thinking. Using such tests is an easy, cost-effective way to ensure new hires meet expectations and develop into strong professionals.

Allowing candidates to retake recruitment assessments can increase fairness but also carries risks to test integrity.

Hiring offshore talent can bring huge benefits to accounting firms — but only if you know what to look for in interviews. Offshore candidates often come from different cultural and professional contexts, which means certain “red flags” may actually be normal. Check out the six signs to pay attention to, and how to interpret them

This blog highlights that writing a job ad is much like writing any other advertisement—you’re selling an opportunity, not just listing duties. A strong job ad should filter out unqualified applicants while attracting top talent by blending clarity, creativity, and storytelling.