The Challenge of Recruiting a CFO in a Small Town
Companies based in small towns located far from major population centres face unique difficulties in recruiting qualified people in general, and find it especially difficult to recruit qualified executives. The Only Game in Town In many cases, if the company in question is of any size, they’re the town’s biggest single employer and the neighbouring […]
I Want My New CFO Yesterday!
A few months ago, I got a call from the CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing concern who needed to recruit a VP Finance. The incumbent had just handed in her notice, was leaving the firm in four weeks, and he was in a bit of a panic to replace her. This CEO wanted to meet […]
5 Things CFOs Hate about Job Hunting
1. Recruiters When you were a bright, young, up-and-coming accounting professional, recruiters couldn’t get enough of you. If you were in public accounting, they started calling right after you passed the UFE. If you were in financial reporting, financial planning and analysis or audit in industry, head-hunters of all stripes were in frequent touch with […]
What’s in a Name: Vice President of Finance, Director of Finance or Controller?
Once you’ve made the decision that you need a qualified professional to head up your finance function, the next decision is determining how much horsepower you actually need in your CFO. And in order to do that, you need to realistically assess not only how much technical horsepower is required to handle the job but […]
Placement Agencies vs. Executive Search Firms: How You Pay Determines How You Play
In the early days of the recruitment industry (which wasn’t all that long ago), it was easy to distinguish between the two very distinct types of recruitment firms – placement agencies and executive search firms. Placement agencies were used for hiring junior and clerical staff, and executive search firms were retained to recruit executives. As […]
Tips for CFOs Who Want to Turbo-Charge Their Job Search Efforts
In a previous article (The Invisible Job Market for Financial Executives), I discussed the lack of protocol around recruiting a finance executive in the world of small and medium sized enterprises. However, SMEs do have one common theme when it comes to recruiting a CFO or vice president of finance – they tend to take […]
Are you hiring a CFO? Calculating Compensation Within Private Companies
Hiring a top notch CFO, someone who will advance your company’s agenda and business objectives, requires strategic thinking on a number of fronts, not least of which is compensation. Not only will a well thought out compensation plan bring the best candidate to the table, it will align your CFO properly with your company’s interests. […]
Taking the Average (and Bad) CFO Hire Out of Play
Companies going to market to recruit a financial executive can trip over any number of small snags. Recruiting an executive tends to be more complicated than most business endeavors due to the large human component involved in the transaction. Even after all the tangibles have been addressed, like education, technical qualifications, and industry experience, you […]
LinkedIn’s Limitations When You’re Looking for a New VP Finance
The perception exists that social media in general and LinkedIn in particular, are the solution to every recruitment question. While it’s true that LinkedIn is a very useful site and an important tool for anyone involved with recruitment, it’s not the solution to every recruitment problem. Two Ways to Use LinkedIn LinkedIn has two main […]
Hiring the CFO in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
When owner-managed companies start out, their accounting needs are few and relatively simple. Cheques need to be cut, invoices need to be collected, people need to get paid, the government needs its taxes and so forth. Actually, most of what needs to be done in the name of accounting could be categorized as bookkeeping which […]
Peering Over the Expectation Gap
It’s Tuesday morning around 10:00am and a hypothetical VP of Finance (let’s call her Amanda) is at her desk strategizing about replacing her controller who resigned on Friday. She’d already talked to human resources who promised to post the job online and now she’s wondering what else she could be doing to expedite the process. […]
Why You Want to Hire an Argumentative Recruiter
When I want to buy something out of the ordinary, something not in a “pick it up off the shelf” category, I inevitably want some market intel before I make the purchase. When I was in the market for a house in Toronto many years ago, I wanted the real estate agent to fill me […]
What Real Estate and Recruitment Have in Common
I was walking my dog recently and as I ambled down the residential streets of my neighbourhood I noticed a number of realtors’ For Sale or Just Sold signs posted on various properties I passed. And it occurred to me that on the surface, real estate and recruitment had a few things in common. Three Things in Common […]
How Not to Search for a CFO
A year or so ago I got a call from the CEO of a $50mm roofing contractor who needed to hire a new CFO. The CEO was the son of the founder of the firm, and had been at the helm of the family business for about five years. Dad had ostensibly retired but still […]
Taking Counter-Offers Out of Play
Let’s take a hypothetical situation where you’re the CFO of a thriving micro-brewing company (since we’re being hypothetical, we might as well have some fun). Your controller resigned a couple of months ago, giving you two weeks’ notice and you’ve been busy trying to fill their chair ever since. And now, finally, after a long, […]
Refereeing References
Earlier this year, I was working on two different searches that only had one thing in common: in both cases there was an issue with the references of the lead candidates. One of the searches was for a CFO of an owner-managed industrial parts distributor and the other search was for a controller for a […]
The Value of Benchmarking in Recruiting a VP Finance
Nerd Alert! When you google the word “benchmark”, the very first definition that pops up is: a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed. And after it runs through all of the alternative definitions (which are not to be confused with alternative facts – they may be similar but I’m […]
When Your CFO Hire Goes Bad
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of hiring someone through a recruitment firm who didn’t work out, no doubt you ascribed the blame to your recruiter. Which may be fair but then again, it may not be. After all, if you’ve been around for any length of time in business you’ve probably hired someone on […]
A Primer on Recruiting CFOs
A few months ago I was meeting with a prospective client, the owner-manager of a consumer products manufacturer, to talk about recruiting a CFO for their organization. It was an important hire for the company but from what I could tell from my initial discussion with the owner-manager, from a recruiter’s point of view, it […]
Why Some CEOs End Up Habitually Hiring the Wrong CFOs
Every now and again I’ll have a finance executive ring me up and ask me to find them a new position when they’ve only been with their current employer for a matter of six or eight months. They’re almost always well regarded professionals who’ve never before precipitously jumped ship. When I ask why they want […]
