recruiting

10 ideas to keep your firm moving forward

by

jean caragher
jean caragher

attract and retain the best and the brightest.

by jean caragher
capstone marketing

daniel burrus, considered one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and business strategists and author of six books including “flash foresight: how to see the invisible and do the impossible,” was the opening speaker at the 2012 cch user conference held this week in my new hometown of san diego.

complete conference coverage: cloud & mobile technologies drive change in tax and accounting  |  how apple is changing your business  |  10 ideas to keep your firm moving forward  |

given the rapidly changing world in which we work, burrus challenged us to look into the future to determine those hard trends (those that will happen whether we want it or not) and soft trends (those trends over which we have control) that will impact our business.  then, he encouraged us to use flash foresight – the ability to trigger a burst of accurate insight about the future – and to use it to produce a new and radically different way of doing things. read more →

25 magic words for career success

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surprise: hard work and knowledge aren’t number 1. neither are skills or knowledge.

by rick telberg

above all else, the essential ingredient for career success as a cpa is not what you might think.

it’s not knowledge or ability; although you can’t be a cpa without either. it’s not hard work or integrity. but you won’t go far without them. in one word: it’s about “clients.” read more →

firms at strategy session find their ‘rock stars’

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top talent strategy session
cpa firm decision-makers hammer out the best clues to identify partner-potential professionals and how best to recruit, develop and retain them at a strategy session in milwaukee.

hint: it’s not about how smart they are or hard they work.

by rick telberg

how do you spot the hidden rock stars on your staff?

and what do up-and-coming tax, accounting and finance professionals need to know to get ahead in today’s profession?

rick telberg leading the strategy session
rick telberg leading the strategy session

these aren’t idle questions. many firms and individuals are struggling with these issues right now. but don’t take it from me. just listen to the decision-makers from a dozen firms i met with in a milwaukee hotel recently. the mission: learn how to deal with a looming new staff shortage. some took away solid action plans. “our firm,” said one, “is trying to develop our rock stars and this showed me we need to be doing more.” another said, “excellent! it gave us the details and the ‘how-to.’”

green team's top talent indicators notes
green team's top talent indicators notes

interestingly, the milwaukee group’s conclusions and recommendations closely parallel our related research findings. so we can be fairly certain that we’ve obtained some of the profession’s favorite strategies.

you could probably adapt one of our methods for your firm. in milwaukee, we divided the group into two teams, the green team and the blue team. after some preliminary coaching, each team hammered out a list of the top five talent indicators – the clues in an employee’s behaviors and attitudes that demonstrate the highest likelihood of the best roi for a firm’s time, energy, and money in training, coaching and mentoring. then the group filled several flip chart pages with their lists and hashed them out with each other. after identifying the key indicators, we moved on to identifying the best strategies for recruiting, grooming and retaining top talent.

blue team's top talent indicators notes
blue team's top talent indicators notes

by far, the top predictive indicator across all firms is the trait, “they are always trying to improve.” it comes in a few flavors or variations. for instance, the green team at the milwaukee strategy meeting favored a passion for “continuous learning.” the blue team preferred, “they do ‘extra credit’ – things that the partners wouldn’t normally expect from someone at their level.” but they add up to the same thing.

read more →