Industry Insights

This article argues that accountants can strengthen their role as trusted advisors by helping clients make better hiring decisions using objective assessments rather than relying solely on résumés, interviews, or personal recommendations.

The article outlines two practical hiring approaches: testing candidates before the first interview or after an initial interview. In both methods, candidates are scored objectively, and testing acts as a gatekeeper to eliminate weak applicants early. This leads to faster hiring, better candidate filtering, stronger legal protection, and fewer costly hiring mistakes.

Even with strong hiring processes, accounting firms will occasionally make hires that don’t work out. Underperformance can stem from many causes — skill gaps, lack of confidence, poor onboarding, unclear expectations, workload pressure, or difficulty adjusting to a new environment. Rather than treating it as immediate failure, firms should identify issues early, provide fair support, and make timely decisions if improvement doesn’t occur.

The blog explains that hiring accounting and bookkeeping professionals is difficult because many strong candidates are already employed and may only be casually exploring opportunities. Employers should therefore focus not just on technical qualifications, but also on understanding a candidate’s real motivations, career goals, and readiness to change jobs.

AI is rapidly reshaping accounting by automating routine tasks like transaction coding and reconciliations. As a result, accountants are shifting from “doers” to “reviewers,” responsible for interpreting and validating AI-generated outputs. While AI improves efficiency, it can still produce errors that appear correct, making human oversight essential. This shift makes curiosity a critical skill.

Performance reviews aim to be objective, but even well-designed processes can introduce bias. One overlooked source is self-assessments done before manager evaluations. Research shows that women—especially women of color—tend to rate themselves lower than men. When managers see these self-ratings first, their own evaluations are influenced downward due to anchoring bias.

A recent LinkedIn post by Queensland recruiter Christine Foggiato highlights a costly hiring mistake that many accounting firms face. A CA-qualified accountant with eight years of experience moved from an $85,000 role to a $130,000 senior position, but was let go after just five months due to underperformance.

Hiring accountants is meant to be objective, but research shows that first impressions—based on faces, voices, and even names—often influence decisions before real skills are evaluated. 

Hiring offshore accounting staff carries the same risks as in-office hiring—but often with higher hidden costs. A bad hire leads to lost productivity, rework, frustrated managers, and strained client relationships, and these issues can be amplified in remote settings.

Accounting firms are turning to AI to ease talent shortages and improve efficiency, but this shift increases—not reduces—the importance of strong hiring decisions. As AI handles routine tasks, accountants must focus more on judgment, critical thinking, ethics, and clear communication—skills that are hard to assess through Resumes and interviews alone.

The story of “Winston” illustrates the high cost of a bad hire in accounting. Despite a strong, AI-polished resume and confident interview, Winston lacked core technical skills, which became obvious within weeks. After failed improvement efforts, he was terminated, forcing the firm to restart the hiring process. Bad hires are common, damaging morale and productivity, and can cost at least 150% of salary—made worse by firms delaying tough decisions.

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.