Business booming, talent scarce: a recruiter’s take on public practice accounting

On an upcoming Under the Hood episode, public practice recruitment specialist Christine Foggiato shares her thoughts on recent recruitment trends shaped by AI, offshoring and shifting market needs.

Foggiato, the director of Riverside Recruitment, said that accounting firms were in stiff competition for talent amid acute skills shortages, which was good news for accountants looking to find a job with the perks and conditions they desired.

“The accounting industry has grown so much over the past 30 years and you know, you just need to look at the annual revenue increases in the big four and the mid tiers as well as the boutique firms each year to know that the accounting industry is absolutely booming,” she said.

“We're simply just not having enough people go to university to study accounting.”

According to Foggiato, firms were competing on perks such as additional annual leave, flexible work policies, and practical conveniences such as an office car park. Culture was another huge influencing factor in staff retention and attraction.

“Really good firms can lose people but still keep a good culture. And if they keep that good culture, then it still helps with employee attraction,” she noted.

While some industries were seeing a broader push back towards the office, Foggiato noted that most accounting firms were still offering flexible arrangements as part of their competition for talent.

“Most accounting firms are still happy to offer at least one day a week work from home or two days a week. The firms that offer zero work from home for senior accountants and above are the ones that are going to struggle to find good people."

As the use of AI has exploded across the industry, Foggiato acknowledged that some job-seekers were concerned that their resumes were being screened out before they reached a human’s desk. She reassured job-hunting accountants that AI tools were largely used to screen for administrative issues, such as a lack of working rights or completely unqualified applicants.

“We read posts on LinkedIn or Reddit about getting past the AI screening. I would just want everyone to rest assured to know that all applications are looked at,” she said.

“AI is more screening out people who might not have full working rights or people who have no experience in accounting whatsoever.”

However, Foggiato anticipated that the intersecting trends of AI and offshoring would lead to significant shifts in the skills demanded within the accounting industry. In particular, accountants without strong client-facing skills could be at risk of being replaced, she warned.

“Employers are looking for people with really good communication skills and really good relationship-building skills with clients,” she said.

“If you are an accountant and you are completely unable to communicate with clients for whatever reason, I feel like in the next five years your job is at risk of being replaced by an offshore person.”

As a tip for job-hunting accountants, she added that most public practice accounting roles were part of the “hidden job market,” underscoring the importance of proactivity and networking to find them.

“Just know that 90 per cent of roles in public practice accounting are not advertised online. So in order to access the hidden job market, you need to be networking on LinkedIn and ideally jumping on mailing lists of various recruitment agencies,” she said.

“So definitely sign up for mailing lists so that you can access the hidden job market.”

On the firm side, she urged employers to sit down and take stock of all of their benefits they offered to ensure they were selling themselves well to prospective employees.

“I always ask [firms] if they know all the benefits that they have in their firm,” Foggiato said.

“There was an accounting firm that I was working with last year that offered all of its employees five weeks of annual leave. But I didn't know that. Most of the hiring managers who were interviewing people didn't know that. So they weren't even explaining their perks in the interview process.

“Candidates were turning down roles with them, not knowing about all the perks. So I would recommend firms even just to put together a quick PDF on Canva [with] some staff photos and some of the perks that they offer.”