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Ramping Up
Recruiting talent for CPA firms and accounting resellers isn't getting any easier.

By Carly Lombardo

It's a tight job market. So why does Altara, a Microsoft reseller with a staff of 100, think it will have great success in hiring another 20 people with a broad range of skills?

For one, in February, the Bernardsville, N.J.-based reseller hired eight new staffers, including three project managers, a relatively hot commodity.

Altara's problem with finding staff is actually the opposite of what many firms face. "I am trying to keep up with the people who want to work here," says CEO Helen Cole.

Those 20 future staff members will include account executives, Microsoft Axapta consultants, help desk employees, application developers, and systems engineers. Some of those will come from advertising-Altara had six postings on Monster.com as February ended.

But given the high demand for accounting software implementers and installers, Cole believes the best tool for attracting qualified candidates is to have a reputation as a good place to work, since most candidates come via referrals from clients and other resellers.

	Staffing a New Firm Xcelerate was formed in January 2006, and with its formation came the need for more staff. So it doesn't hurt the reseller of Sage Accpac that its primary vendor is helping with the development of sales personnel. Xcelerate, with offices in Buffalo Grove, Ill., and Knox, Ind., was formed after the Buffalo Grove branch separated from its parent, Forepoint, a leading Sage Accpac and CRM reseller with offices in three different states, and merged with nearby Accpac reseller DataQuest Consulting, based in Knox, Ind. "We want to build an organization where there is enough senior staff to bring in junior staff. If you're going to grow, stay or lead the pack, you have to be able to feed off yourself," says president Jan Goodman. The firm currently has 12 people, six in each office, and plans to have 15 people by year-end. "We want to grow organically and in our region. However, it's hard to find trained people. It is either luck or the bad fortune of someone else. In the Chicago area, it's hard because everyone is comfortable with his or her role," adds Goodman. So how is the hunt for staff going? Currently, the sales person on board is going through Irvine, Calif.-based Sage Software's 100/100 program, which provides a pool of $1 million to help 100 VARs hire one new sales person for each organization. Sage contracted with Opus Marketing to help participating resellers. Opus assisted in designing ads, screening resumes and rating candidates. Also, Goodman is negotiating with someone for a senior consultant position. The candidate has been operating as a one-man shop, but is now looking to join a team. In Indiana, the firm has both a sales and a consultant position open, and the firm is talking to a consultant who comes from a client that is laying off one-third of its staff. Also, the firm is looking for administrative staff. Goodman predicts by the end of February the firm will have hired at least three people and will possibly hire five people by year's end. Not to mention Goodman sees the VAR landscape changing, and hopes to look at smaller players as a way to meet the demand for staff. "How we attain our tier levels are changing at Sage and I think there will be a reaction from the smaller VARs. We hope smaller VARs are going to get ready to talk, and we would love to fold one or two smaller VARs into our offices," adds Goodman.

"A good reputation really helps," says Cole. But the jobs must also be rewarding. She says there is not a lot of interest in simple projects, the necessary basic GL/AR/AP installations. But there is a lot of interest "if I am doing an implementation, we are doing a lot of high- level budgeting and forecasting, such as putting a Sharepoint portal on top of Axapta and Microsoft CRM," she says.

Another key is flexibility. Cole believes in hiring good people that the company discovers even if the company may not have had a particular job in mind. That means hiring qualified people who may not be able to work from one of Altara's three offices.

"We are hiring incredibly talented people who live in Texas and North Carolina," she says.

The company has communications software and can hold white-boarding sessions via the Internet. It also has an IP-based telephone system and can route calls wherever necessary. While Cole would prefer to hire office-based staff, "If we have the right person, we bring them on board," she says.

The demand for more specialized workers comes as Altara turned its focus to vertical markets such as professional services and supply chain. But Cole believes that knowledge about bits and bytes is not the most crucial skill for candidates.

"When it comes to hiring, you have to break the mold. If the candidates possess strong business process knowledge it is much easier to train them on the applications," says Cole.

To make this hiring process more effective, Altara created its own internal product and industry-training programs.

It has also found vendor and channel consolidation to be a benefit in providing a supply of candidates.

"We have hired and have been approached by people who greatly preferred the entrepreneurial aspects of firms like J.D. Edwards before being absorbed by Oracle and other large resellers. They enjoy being part of an organization where they can individually continue to have an impact," adds Cole.

That doesn't mean it's all smooth sailing.

"Our biggest challenge is not comprising our high standards. The right skill set is important, but the candidate must fit the culture too. Attitude is an important driver; candidates must be able to be team players, as well as work independently, because our people are not always in the same location. The dichotomy is a challenge, but it's what makes us successful," says Cole.

A Tough Job

Recruiting talent isn't getting any easier, and competition to hire the right people is heating up. And, Altara isn't the only firm tweaking its hiring processes to address their staffing needs.

According to a study of employees and hiring managers conducted by Robert Half International and CareerBuilder.com, one year ago 42 percent of hiring managers reported it was difficult to find qualified candidates, while recently 32 percent said it has become even more challenging.

A variety of trends have conspired to tighten the market. On the technology side, accounting software sales have rebounded. The 2005 hurricanes stimulated demand for disaster planning and recovery services, which are services that can be provided by CPA firms and VARs.

There are a lot of jobs being advertised in the technology consulting market. At the end of February, ePartners, a national reselling firm based in Seattle, had postings for 63 jobs on Monster.com, which represented a significant expansion for a firm which had a staff of about 400 last year. Tectura, the largest reseller based in the United States, had 43 postings.

There is fierce competition for IT auditors, being sought by private corporations, public accounting firms, and technology consulting and reselling firms. And advertisements for IT auditors have proliferated.

	Salary Outlook? On the Way Up It probably comes as no surprise to many hiring managers that Robert Half Technology predicted that the average starting salary for IT professionals would rise by 3 percent this year. That prediction came with the fall release of the Robert Half Techology Guide. Not surprisingly, the biggest increase was expected for IT auditors, with salaries expected to rise by 11 percent. Of course, salaries for experienced personnel go higher, depending on experience and geography. For example, in recent ads on MBSgurus.com, Iteration2 sought an Axapta-techno-functional consultant at a salary ranging from $90,000 to $110,000. Kono Consulting was looking for a San Francisco-based Great Plains consulting manager with five years experience from $100,000 to $150,000 annually. The Robert Half survey found a wide range of increases in starting salaries as shown in the following table.

In discussing the growth in demand for IT skills for a story about risk management that appeared in the March issue of Accounting Technology, Lawrence Rieger, the executive in charge of Crowe Chizek's risk consulting services, said that Sarbanes-Oxley alone has doubled the need for IT risk professionals. At the end of Feburary, the Indianapolis-based firm had seven postings on Monster.com that involved IT audit positions.

The situation was similar at St. Louis-based Brown Smith Wallace, which has grown its risk management department from four to 24 in four years and was expecting to hire another six by June.

On the accounting firm side, there has been an increase in hiring out of college, according to Roseland, N.J.-based J.H. Cohn.

"The largest challenge in the industry is the shortage of accountants with three to seven years of experience. Also, there was a major decline in college enrollment in accounting programs during the 1990s that negatively affected hiring in the industry," says Carolyn D'Anna, Cohn's partner-in-charge of human resources.

J.H. Cohn is therefore investing its time and resources at the college level and has increased the number of students it hires to prevent future shortages within the firm.

"On a positive note, we are already starting to see college accounting enrollments increase," adds D'Anna.

Accounting software resellers are in the same boat when it comes to finding help.

"We're really struggling. We need bodies, but we have to have the right ones," says Manny Buigas, president of St. Louis-based Axis Integrated Solutions, a firm that formed in the fall.

"Over the last 12 months, the hiring landscape has become very much an employee-driven market. The candidates we are interested in hiring are highly talented and it's not unusual for these individuals to have multiple offers of employment," says Jeneane Cremers, vice president of Human Resources for ePartners. "These employees are looking for a competitive salary, work that challenges them, opportunities for growth, and a company that appreciates what they have to offer. Consequently, we have come to realize that meeting the increasing demands of the marketplace will require us to be very creative and proactive from a recruiting standpoint and in many instances, to train and develop our own talent," adds Cremers.

Searching for New Talent

Because of the crunch, James Bourke, director of MIS at WithumSmith+Brown, has changed his strategy for finding new hires.

"Our philosophy changed as a result of not being able to find senior staff. In the past, the firm, which has several offices located in New Jersey, never had a firm-wide hiring effort. Now, we don't start hiring when we need someone, we hire before we need them," he says.

One big change is that WithumSmith has been going back to school. With international firms getting the cream of the graduating classes, it ramped up its campus recruiting three years ago. It also created an internship program where it grabs mostly college juniors and brings them into the firm.

"CPA firms are slow in the summer and it might not be the time to hire, but we're going to incur the cost of the internship program to get the right people," says Bourke.

Each intern is assigned to a senior staff member, who then mentors that person. At any given time, the firm has approximately 20 interns. If interns work out, the firm offers them positions prior to graduation. Bourke adds, "The younger culture is bound to bond with each other, create a community, not to mention, it's great for the firm's morale."

Bourke isn't the only one going back to school.

Axis Integrated Solutions is also turning to higher education as a source of new employees to meet its goals.

"Staffing continues to be our firm's biggest challenge. We can't grow any faster if we can't bring in quality employees," says president Buigas.

To bring in new talent, Buigas is trying a new recruiting process by partnering with the Florida International University. "The only drawback here is it's hard to train people from the ground up. But, for now the most important thing is we're going to look for new talent based on quality," he says.

Other firms have found the best way to find new employees is to rely on their current employees.

"Our employees are our best ambassadors. We make all job openings within the company transparent to the employees," says Shannon Fisher, HR lead for Tectura North America.

The company's employee referral program was the No. 1 source for 67 new hires last year, 41 percent of the total.

In New Jersey, J.H. Cohn needs to hire auditors with three to 10 years of experience who possess technical accounting skills. To fill these positions, the firm utilizes full-time recruiters on staff as well as offering incentives to existing employees who refer candidates. In fact, the firm recently offered a Lexus SUV to any employee referring three candidates that were hired.

At Southfield, Mich.-based Plante & Moran Doug Wiescinski, practice unit manager technology consulting and solutions, says his biggest challenge is finding people with technology, consulting, and good business development skills. The firm recently instituted a bonus program to help with attracting and retaining employees.

"Employees receive a stipend if we hire the referral. It allows our staff of 1,400 to be armed and ready to find candidates to fill our open positions," adds Wiescinski.

Combating Shortages

Axis' Buigas finds collaborating with other firms in the channel helps combat staffing shortages.

"Once you find a person, it's hard to get them for a reasonable price. Many times you end up in a bidding war with accounting firms. It's not the time to buy. It's another reason to outsource," says Buigas. In fact, 20 percent of all the firm's projects are outsourced.

"We turn to employees from other consulting firms whose business may be slow. Projects can include programming and customization and often an implementation that might last about three weeks," adds Buigas.

Similarly, Altara works with location firms such as Analysts International, a Microsoft firm and staffing agency, to find employees. "They provide people on a contract basis, and they also offer a temp-to-permanent employee option which gives us the flexibility to hire resources who truly compliment our team. There are times when you need to quickly bring someone on with a certain skill level, but based on fit, might want to make them part of your team," says Cole.

Although Altara prefers to have its own resources in place, "It's a great way to evaluate people, and see how they work on jobs," adds Cole.

The Survey Says

Once a firm finds the right employees, the next step is to determine what keeps them happy.

To say retaining talent is important to Redwood City, Calif.-based Tectura would be an understatement. Tectura has 63 offices worldwide, and 1,400 employees overall, with 500 in North America.

"In order for us to focus and fine tune our initiatives dedicated to building a great place to work, we implemented a global team member survey. The survey is based on a model our CEO, Terry Petrzelka, described as one that defines the foundation of a great place to work as one that is based on trust between team members and leaders," says Shannon Fisher, lead HR for North America.

The model asks specific questions that measures leadership capabilities, fairness in the workplace, attitude, respect toward team members, pride in the company, and camaraderie among team members.

"We learned our areas of strength were in relationships with leaders based on their honesty, accessibility, credibility and trust and that our team members overall felt a sense of pride about Tectura and their work felt valued as a team member," adds Fisher.

"While areas for improvement were in helping employees find better work/life balance, leaders need to share more of the vision of Tectura, and we need to more clearly identify and articulate professional growth opportunities and career paths at Tectura."

Based on these results, Tectura set global strategies from which to build a solid foundation of trust. Some specific action items for the North American team are:

* Tectura's CEO and other senior leadership engaged in a Visions and Values Tour, visiting each location and along with local leadership, conducting a workshop during which the vision of Tectura was discussed and team members provided ideas and specific action items on how the company could achieve the vision, as well as the firm's values.

* The firm instituted bi-weekly global internal newsletters alternating with national internal newsletters, which are open forums for leaders and team members to share news, ideas, thoughts, and successes. These have been issued every week for the past 18 months.

* The firm held strategy sessions with leadership on all the survey results and brainstormed on ways to help with employee work/life balance. In the course of the firm's work, there is a great deal of travel. Tectura set goals to try to arrange client project work so that team members could avoid traveling on weekends; allow telecommuting where practical; and provide benefits including paid time-off practices.

"We have made good progress and work on our survey results is an ongoing initiative. The focus is on continuously improving what we do in regard to making Tectura a great place to work. We resurvey our team members each year to measure our progress. The positive impact is we see our team member satisfaction improving, which in turn has a positive impact on our ability to attract high quality candidates; we are experiencing lower turnover and improved morale," says Fisher.