Industry Insights

Maintaining a robust selection process with choosy candidates in a labour shortage is just another day in the challenges of management. Here’s a guide for landing great selection decisions in a tough job market.

Hiring globally brings valuable diversity but adds complexity, especially when assessing cognitive ability in candidates who speak English as a second language (ESL). Accountests has developed a Bookkeeper and Admin Ability (Cognitive Test) Suite that is accessible and insightful across language backgrounds.

This blog reflects insights gathered from webinars and workshops with aspiring partners, Managing Partners, and HR teams. It identifies six key personality-related obstacles that commonly hinder accountants' progression toward partnership and offers guidance on how to address them.

When reviewing resumes (CVs), hiring managers may overlook the growing influence of AI. Job seekers are increasingly using AI tools to tailor their resumes to specific job ads—often by uploading both the job description and their own CV to platforms like ChatGPT for optimization suggestions. This raises concerns about authenticity, especially when 70% of candidates already admit to lying on resumes.

The blog concludes that employers should focus less on credentials and more on testing actual skills and job readiness, using assessments to make fairer, data-driven hiring decisions. In today’s job market, capability outweighs academic qualifications.

The blog critiques the widespread admiration of grit—commonly portrayed on LinkedIn and in self-help circles as the ultimate key to personal and professional success. While grit is often desired by employers and managers, especially during hiring and development discussions, the post urges a more balanced view by uncovering its hidden downsides.

The blog emphasizes that customer questions often reflect wider concerns—many people share the same questions. This week’s focus was on a client who had experienced a failed hire for a remote tax senior position and wanted to avoid repeating that mistake.

The blog highlights the growing challenge of talent churn in accounting firms and emphasizes the urgency of addressing it. At Accountests, the team is collaborating with the Accounting MOVE Project, the Center for Accounting Transformation, and CPA Trendlines to support a study that aims to provide accounting firms with insights on how to reduce turnover and foster better workplace cultures.

Restructures often carry negative connotations—job cuts, uncertainty, and a demoralized workforce. However, a staff-centered approach can transform this process into a positive one, improving engagement, reducing turnover, and increasing ROI.

A common question employers ask when considering personality testing in hiring is whether candidates can “cheat” by presenting an idealized version of themselves. With the stakes of a job or promotion on the line, it's natural for some individuals to try and tailor their responses to align more closely with the desired profile—even if it doesn’t reflect who they truly are. The good news is that whether this is detectable depends on the test being used. Some personality assessments can flag when a person is answering in a way that’s overly polished, evasive, or inconsistent. These insights help employers determine if someone is being authentic in their responses or trying to game the system—allowing for more informed, meaningful conversations during interviews.

When a client urgently calls asking for help reviewing resumes for a key finance hire, it can feel risky for the accounting firm—especially when there’s no obvious benefit and plenty of downside if things go wrong. A poor hire could reflect badly on the firm if the candidate lacks the technical skills needed, even though the firm’s involvement was informal.

In leadership and high-accountability roles, especially within professional services, Drive and Motivation are key indicators of long-term success. These traits, though essential, are often difficult to measure objectively during hiring or development processes. The Accountests Personality Profile Questionnaire (APPQ) offers a robust solution by assessing Drive and Motivation through the Big-5/OCEAN personality model. It helps employers pinpoint candidates who are not just capable but also intrinsically driven to succeed.