Golden Practices

5 Interview Tips from the Master

I think a lot of my friend and fellow-fellow (at VeraSage) Christopher Marston. I've talked to Chris many times, emailed with him more, and read his blog since its inception (he's not quite that much of a smart-ass in real-life, by the way). He's brilliant and worth listening to.

I finally met Chris in person last October when VeraSage Institute held our first ever meeting of the minds in Las Vegas. Over a lovely Indian dinner with his Exemplary team, I learned what they have done to improve the interview process from the employer standpoint, driven partly out of boredom of interviewing several hundred attorneys and screening out many times that number.   

Can you imagine how bored you would become interviewing that many people? Asking, and answering, the same ol' questions over and over...

So, they started to spice it up. They got really good at identifying, from the letter, from the call to bring the person in, from the first impression, and from the interviews themselves, how to decide who was worthy of serious consideration and who was a dud.

I won't give away their true personality detection techniques (they are GOOD!) in case their candidates happen to see this blog when they do their research (but if you call them, maybe they'll share some tips with you).

Fascinated, I asked Chris' colleagues Jessica, Kim and Steven, what their own interviews were like. What Chris (and the team) put each, in turn, through (OMG, the stories are amazing!) and the challenges they faced, actually intensely attracted each of them to pursue their career at Exemplar. Hmmm.

Without necessarily trying to, they illustrated for me that the interview is very much a two-way sales process!  For a great long-term fit, it really should be, shouldn't it?

All this to preface that Chris's recent post: "5 Interviewing Tips Never to Forget" is not to be taken lightly. His post is as useful to the interviewER as the interviewEE. Enjoy and think about how these tips can help you spot the character and charisma you really want to bring into your firms.

And if you are a job candidate looking for your next great career move, heed his words!

Recruiting Magnets: Firms of the Future

There's so much more to this story than the recruiting angle. This story is about the future of professional service firms.

But now that I have your attention let me tell you about Brendon Harrex, a senior fellow of VeraSage Institute. He's another innovator turning the professional firm business model upside down!

Brendon, at the age of 31, became the first Chief Value Officer (ever) in his 100-person accounting firm. This means HE was solely in charge of ALL pricing. Read more about this in Ron Baker's post Who's In Charge of Value in Your Firm? where he describes Brendon's role:

If you worked at Ward Wilson, a four-office, ten-partner, one-hundred team member firm in Invercargill, New Zealand, your answer would be Brendon Harrex, who was recently appointed Chief Value Officer, responsible for creating and capturing value across the entire firm. Brendon, at age 31, is the youngest partner in the firm, and is an amazing visionary, bringing leadership not only to his firm, but our entire profession.

Then, at age 33, Brendon was elected chairman of Ward Wilson--the firm had amazing vision. But it also had aging partners who, apparently, were more concerned with their retirement than with the posterity of the profession (my words, not Brendon's!).

Ward Wilson sold to a consolidator. Brendon's window of opportunity opened and he bought out one of WW's offices, the one he led before becoming Chairman. Below is the e-mail he shared with Ron Baker and me about this.

His brilliant ad (pictured, click to enlarge) says:

"If you have get up and go and know you should have got up and left before now, consider the Harrex Group."

Now Brendon has a WAITING LIST of future employees who WANT to come work for him. Read on, the emphasis is mine:

Who Makes Accounting Fun?

My friend Ed Kless (who works for Sage and is a fellow Fellow of VeraSage) promotes the Xerox notion, furthered by David Maister, that:

Employee Satisfaction -->  Customer Satisfaction -->  Increased Profitability (or at least, as Ed says, "Financial Performance")

If it's true, if Employee Satisfaction leads to the performance result, why don't we spend more time innovating in this area?  I think this chain is absolutely true because, quite frankly, you cannot give truly great service if you are miserable in your job.

Just look at Southwest Airlines' people versus, say, oh, any other airline...
or Disney people compared to Six Flags...
or The Container Store people compared to Organized Living...

So, is accounting fun? Does the profession "connect" with today's under 35 crowd?  Not much. But here are two cool examples!

1 - Did you know that the Maryland Association of CPAs has a presence on Second Life? Oh, and did I mention MACPA has a blog?? H&R Block and some firms are involved in Second Life, too. Interesting to keep an eye on, for sure--and a lot of work to do it right...let's see how they do.

2 - Did you know that the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs has a 2-minute music video called "Tute in Da House"? Fantastic!

Now, compare Tute in Da House with Ernst & Young's "Oh Happy Day" video... (pretty long, but the first minute conveys the whole concept).

Which is more cool? Which is more fun? How about more authentic? Which people would you rather work with?

What will your firm do to be more fun?  What should the profession do?

hat tip to Lyne Noella for the HKI video...

It's Official. Demand Outweighs Supply.

Some call this news story "good" but I call it unfortunate. Well, maybe the publicity is good...

Accounting made #1 on a list (in Am City Bizjournals) of most desired grads. It's official, accounting is hurting more than every other sector when it comes to needing qualified, interested people.

Demand officially outweighs supply. Dare I say the future we've worried about is here.

Bizjournals are reporting:

The number of new college grads hired by the service sector is expected to increase by 19.8 percent this year, based on National Association of Colleges and Employers' [NACE--a human-resources organization] findings.

Hot employment fields for grads

Employers are on the lookout this year for graduates holding the following bachelor's degrees, according to the NACE survey. They are listed in order of anticipated demand:

1. Accounting

2. Business administration and management

3. Computer science

4. Electrical engineering

5. Mechanical engineering

6. Information sciences and systems

7. Marketing and marketing management

8. Computer engineering

9. Civil engineering

10. Economics and finance

So, what can we do to make this profession more attractive? (to those in it as well as those thinking about it...)

We have people fleeing public accounting almost as fast as law (new lawyer defections are approx 85% in the first 5 years)--yet the law school pipelines are generating plenty more--not so with accountants.

And in accounting, we have people with 8, 9, 10 or more years of experience with ZERO desire to ever be owners in their firms.

Is it time to look at and try new ownership models? 
(Some of us think the traditional partnership model is broken.)

Explore a new "practice" equation, perhaps?
(My friend Ron Baker, author of Firm of the Future, explains the New and the Old Practice Equations, in this National Law Journal interview transcript.)

What will it take to open firms' eyes to the fact that it is time to do something other than let this become the next generation's problem. Let's work on improving the posterity of this profession!

Accountants Round Up

Today is a very special day!

My associate, Sue (over there in the picture), and I are really excited to "unveil" our new blog: Accountants Round Up (pun intended!) that is aggregated accounting industry news. Shortcut URL is accountantsroundup.com.

Here's the powerquote about why we've created this:

"Accountants Round Up is created to introduce more accountants to the blogosphere. Skeptics by nature, they’ve been slower to understand and utilize this technology than many other industries, including law. While this is probably a result of information overload, we aim to show them how much more quickly and easily they can stay abreast of news for their own industry," explains Michelle Golden, president and CEO of Golden Marketing, Inc.

"Our hope is to also demonstrate just how useful RSS technology is for professionals who want to stay attuned to the industry news of the clients whom they are privileged to serve—specialized knowledge being a core element of high level service."

We won't claim originality, though. We were clearly inspired by the wonderful job Nancy Stinson does over at the Stark County Law Library blog providing similar information for the legal profession. If I have no other blog reading time in my day, I am sure to skim Nancy's aggregated news to be sure I'm catching the best posts of the day. The Stark County Law Library blog has been going strong for many years.

Maybe one day, Accountants Round Up will be that same sort of "can't miss it" resource for CPAs and Chartered Accountants, too.

Hope you like the new blog. We're pretty excited about it. Sue manages it and does a really great job. She posts a few items a day. There's about 2 months' worth of content out there now, so please go check it out! And if you like it, it's available by RSS feed or email through FeedBlitz.

Happy reading!

(See our press release on the launch: Download accountants_round_up_launch_pr.pdf )

Recruiter Harry Joiner is Blowing My Mind

I really don't know where to start on this post. Suffice to say, I've been following Harry's blog, Marketing Headhunter, for a long time and, though he seemed to have slowed down for awhile, he is back, and back with a bang!

Harry's posts on job searching and hiring don't just apply to marketers--these are pertinent posts for anyone who employs or wants to be employed in today's job market.

Here's some of the stuff catching my eye:

The Future of Linked In
Harry writes:

Linked-In's growth rate might defy traditional growth rates because, like Google, they are solving their market's problems in new and unconventional ways. In other words, you can't imagine what Linked-In's growth rate will be because you can't imagine what they'll evolve into -- and which recruiting platforms they will radically redefine while they do it.

Now, I'm not saying that recruiters are toast. Far from it. But I am saying that anyone who's involved with my industry should be watching Linked-In very carefully.

So... What happens if Sequoia crosses Linked-In with YouTube, giving passive candidates the chance to post two-minute videos of themselves?  Or what happens if Linked-In joins forces with Google, enabling a mash-up of Adwords' reach and targeting with Linked-In's growing network of active job seekers?

Then there's this post:

Why E-Harmony Won't Work for Recruiting
In response to a web strategist wishing he might see an "e-harmony" approach to matching job seekers with job offerers, Harry says, "I just don't see that happening EVER. And believe me, I've thought long and hard about it."

You need to read this post in which he offers five interesting reasons why candidates and HR departments won't find harmony in placement via the Web, alone.

I do take strong exception with Harry's use of CPAs as an example of a profession that doesn't "involve emerging technologies, or emerging uses of existing technologies" or "proprietary processes or technologies."

But, even with that, this post is loaded with thought-provoking ideas.

The third post I'm going to point you to is:

Here is a Question That Helps Me Close Searches
Harry writes

...interviewing candidates is really only half the battle when it comes to brokering a happy client/candidate marriage.

The other half is making sure that you understand what makes the client tick: Who they are as a company, what keeps them up at night, and so on. So without divulging too many trade secrets, I will share the ONE question I ask of every single client whenever I take a search assignment. Ready? Here goes ...

If your company's brand were a person, how would you describe them to a friend?

Read why he insists on asking that question and why HR people don't like it. Learn why your firm's management should ask the question both for prospective employees AND for your own marketing and branding purposes.

Most importantly, see why you should be following Harry's blog, too?

The People Problem is Firms' Fault

Amidst all the legitimate concerns and problems I've seen of late pertaining to finding great people and "retaining" them, I've been extraordinarily frustrated by discussion threads I've been reading.

First, let's define "great people." 

Firms want: smart, self-motivated, self-managing, business development-minded people who will become eventual leaders. These people should be able to exercise substantial judgment in technical scenarios, recognizing when information is noteworthy or merits transmission to others, and in all forms of customer communication. They should be able to train those lower in the ranks than themselves.

These sound like knowledge workers, yes?

So now let's talk about "retention." Isn't this word awful? Doesn't it bring to mind the image of a cage or barricade? In fact, by definition, it is to "keep, hold, hold on to, hold back, keep back, keep in possession."

A knowledge worker is not retained or kept. A knowledge worker is inspired, intrigued, motivated, and intellectually stimulated. A knowledge worker needs to be TRUSTED.

A knowledge worker is, in fact, also a volunteer according to Peter Drucker who said knowledge workers invest of themselves with the expectation of a psychological ROI.

Your knowledge workers may or may not choose to come back tomorrow. Worse than not coming back, they could still come to work, but may no longer be "there" psychologically. If you measure "productivity" with timesheets and attendance, would you ever really know? Yikes.

How much thought and effort do firm leaders/management dedicate to improving their ability to inspire, intrigue, motivate and intellectually challenge their people? Very, very little.

Making minor improvements to common benefits like free sodas or vision/dental coverage is not going to entice someone to stay. These things will NOT make a drop-in-the-bucket difference when firms fail to address the true needs of knowledge workers.

Worse, I want to scream aloud when I see firms focusing intently on micromanaging stupid things like cell phone policies, dress codes and, yes, grooming policies! Good God! If we are having to tell people to bathe and comb their hair, we aren't hiring great people.

These sorts of policies underscore the firms' lack of trust of their knowledge workers. The very existence of these policies in firms draw attention to the lack of alignment between who they are and what they want.

And if we are hiring great people and telling everybody, across the board, exactly how to dress or groom because one person can't get it right, then we don't deserve all those other great people. Frankly, if one person struggles to be appropriate in personal appearance, and we write a "Policy" because we're too chicken to coach them individually, then we get what we deserve when we demoralize everyone who is not the problem.

If we refuse to equip people with cell phones so that we and our clients can reach them (accessibility is still a good thing, right?) then what does that say about the firm's commitment to service? Seriously, how much does a cell-phone cost? What is the cost of inaccessibility?

Where is the firm walking its talk?

Morale in firms is bottom of the barrel low. Adding health club or vision benefits isn't going to solve the problem. Adding petty policies to micromanage knowledge workers is another slap in the face.

Instead of treating people like children, firms should be thinking about:

1. how they are going to train and delegate more interesting work
2. how they will recognize and implement new ideas that come from the youngest, freshest minds in the firm
3. how they will encourage creativity and innovation that will get the profession through the transition to the next generation
4. how they will quit micromanaging every 6 minutes of the day
5. how they will instead look at the value the knowledge worker brings to the firm and its clients

Most firms offer an extremely unfriendly environment for professionals. Most partners agree. But most aren't doing anything to improve it, either.

Associates--the ones who stay--are shunning the "opportunity" to be partners in their firms. The problem isn't that the associates are unwilling to take responsibility, it's the firms failing to offer the opportunity to make a difference to knowledge workers who thrive on the ability to make a difference. I talk to associates in law and CPA firms every week and I hear about this first-hand. They are squelched and discouraged when it comes to new ideas.

Really want an office full of "great" professionals? Then create an environment where they will thrive, not shrivel and conform to a broken firm model.

When your knowledge workers drive home at the end of the day, do they want to come back? Or keep on going...?

Finding (or Becoming) a Great Mentor

An excellent post at Escape from Cubicle Nation is called How Can You Find a Great Mentor? in which author Pamela Slim discusses several facts about mentoring and offers must-read advice.

She notes there are three types of mentors:

1. The technical expert
2. The wise elder
3. The few-steps-ahead peer

She then discusses the characteristics of a great mentoring relationship:

• Encouragement.  A good mentor will not only provide you with valuable advice, he or she will also help you deal with the fear and stress involved in growing professionally and making a big change.
• Reciprocity.  Enduring mentoring relationships have mutual benefit built into them. Your mentor may have years of experience in his or her field, but you also must bring something to the table. Perhaps they are less familiar with technology so you can help them build a website. Whatever you do, make sure they are not the only ones offering support and advice.
• Chemistry.  A mentoring relationship is just that, a relationship. You must truly enjoy each other's company if it is to last. If you put each other at ease and make each other laugh, that will make your time together energizing and engaging.
• Gratitude.  Don't ever forget to acknowledge and thank your mentor for his guidance and advice. Lavish gifts or hollow praise are not necessary.  Good, old fashioned heartfelt thanks in the form of a handwritten note or sincere comment work the best. Let him know what his advice meant to you and how it changed the course of your life.
• Mutual respect. Even if people are very well-known in their field, they don't want to be surrounded by feet-kissing grovelers who deem themselves "not worthy." Let me rephrase that. The mentors you want do not want to be surrounded by arse-kissers. Be confident and present yourself as a humble, less-experienced equal.

She then discusses where to find mentors and how to kick off the mentoring relationship. Where to find mentors is an important topic all its own. I've never been comfortable with the notion that a firm can "appoint" a mentor for new team members.

On the contrary, smart people prefer to select their own members, if you please, and they probably are not the people to whom they report!

In fact, I just read a reference to this in a PRSA article called Ten Things You Didn’t Know About the Grad You Just Hired (And will he or she be working for you a year from now?) (hat tip to David Maister for pointing to the article today). Number 5....

Their bosses aren't their mentors.

Read both articles, you'll be glad you did.

Fly on the Wall #3: "We Don't Have the Right People."

I sometimes hear firms say "we just don't have the RIGHT people."

Traits

I've worked with several firms lately helping them define the desirable characteristics necessary for success in a given role as they prepare to hire for the position.

First we brainstorm all the qualities the firm would like for the role be it a strong manager, a future partner, a good mid-level, etc.  Then we decide which are "must-have's" for that role. The others would be in the category of "would be a plus."

Firms tend to first put nearly everything into the "must have" category. Upon pointing out that this may be a bit unrealistic, some good thinking and discussion go into what are bonus characteristics versus core needs.

Then it's really interesting to re-sort all the traits by what they see as born traits and which can be learned.

It's always very enlightening to hear how the firm thinks their existing partners, managers, seniors, etc. fit--or don't fit--into these optimal characteristics. More importantly, it also seems to help the firms to better appreciate the strengths of the people they currently have.

It certainly helps, even subliminally, in the hiring process. It is well worth the time.

The Leadership Crisis

It's funny but smaller firms tend to find themselves in a cycle of hiring multiple people with similar personality types--whatever it is the hiring persons are most drawn to. And seldom do people in CPA firms seem to hire or retain those who are more aggressive, assertive, confident, whatever… than they are. (I think this is not as prevalent in law or larger firms.)

Wouldn't this mean that these firms get become progressively less leadership-oriented over the years??

If not setting about to actively look for leadership traits in new hires, since it is unlikely for people to later acquire leadership qualities, an organization would seem to be setting itself up for a serious shortage of future leaders/inspirers/motivators in their ranks.

Steve Erickson on Recruiting

Blogging live from Steve Erickson's session on Recruiting at Assoc. for Accounting Administration and I want to share some of his excellent points.

First, I want to express how pleased I am at the number of YOUNG people at this conference. The median age has to be ten years younger than it was just 2 or 3 years ago. This is extremely encouraging to see in the profession of accounting practice management!

Okay, so back to Steve, among the many gems he is sharing:

Leadership is a quality, not a position.

A great reminder!  Some of his other key points are:

• the #1 thing holding the profession back is lack of unity among the partners of firms

• if he could do one thing differently about his practice (retired 5 years ago) it would be more careful client selection -- don't keep clients that abuse employees or that your team members dread working for. Frankly, he says, strong human capital is very scarce right now and is more valuable than any single client relationship.

• he believes young people don't see themselves as successful in the accounting field:

• little meaningful work for them, little clarity about how to become successful and advance (this vague fuzzy thing out there), poorly defined assignments followed by negative feedback (go figure!)

• talk positively about your firm -- we know how word travels fast!

• just as important as developing technical skills, we must encourage and support learning of leadership, business knowledge and personal skills

• reduce internal competition for resources! people are frustrated being pulled in so many directions with less than enough time to do anything as well as they'd like and this is part of the reason the feel they are unable to really be successful

Recruiting Is Marketing and How Training Helps Retention

This week there were some excellent ideas shared on AAM's accounting marketing discussion list. Somebody had asked for ideas and suggestions for the increasingly challenging task of firm recruiting.

Marketers strategize about recruiting because recruiting is essentially marketing to a talent audience instead of a buyer audience.

Vickie Hicks of KPM CPAs in Springfield, Missouri, shared some of what she learned when she worked in the Career Services office at Missouri State University for 10 years. She explained, "My role was to connect students with recruiters and to oversee the placement of business majors specifically."

She made some recommendations that closely parallel marketing strategies used for new business such as targeting, consistent visibility, name recognition, and clearly communicating the unique benefits of going with your firm:

• Keep a consistent presence on campus. Attend career days even on years you don't plan to hire... speak to the clubs, speak to classes.
• It's all about name awareness. The students I worked with were often gun-shy to go with an employer their first time on campus. I worked with many a frustrated recruiter because they expected to ride in on a white horse once every 10 years and hire all the good candidates - it rarely happened. Our firm takes the Good to Great approach, we hire great people. So, on years we thought we weren't hiring, we often did anyway.
• Sometimes it's the little things. The Accounting Club on campus had a Welcome Back to School BBQ. We called and offered to bring frozen custard for everyone. This meant we were on every poster promoting the event, got a mention in every classroom presentation, and a lot of recognition at the event as our polo wearing staff handed out custard to every student there. Cost us less than $100 and was priceless.
• Consider internships. We have found that the recruiting game keeps shifting earlier and earlier. You have to pinpoint really great students as early as their junior year to show them how wonderful your firm is. Funny, but at that stage they haven't even had their hard accounting classes yet.
• Bring your partners into the hiring process. It shows you value the recruits. But also balance that with younger staff to show you value the new employee.
• Have good materials. Outline benefits, typical job duties, social activities, etc.

Mary Nielson of Larson & Company, a 35-person firm in Utah, wisely observes that the responsibilities of recruiting do not end with hiring. "Make sure you have a plan for after you've extended offers to candidates," she suggests.

"When I first started here, we did not have a formal training program at all. Even if you're small, you should definitely develop one. Otherwise," she explains, "you could end up in a situation where you hire really qualified individuals with lots of potential but they don't work out due to frustrations (on both your part and that of the new hire) that could have been easily avoided through a formalized training program.

She's absolutely right. I've seen this in several firms (law and CPA) myself.

One symptom of this problem can be owners/managers who assert that it's not really a great loss that a person left because of his or her work quality or low volume of productivity. While the person may simply be an under-performer, this can also suggest absence of training and supervision.

If a firm can spot a trend such as a particular department where there seems to be a revolving door for entry-level team members, it's pretty likely that the root cause is lack of teaching followed by lack of utilization of the person because they have gone untrained.

Without infrastructure to guide them, they are simply left to flounder. After all your hard work finding and hiring someone, not to mention the investment in doing so, it is an awful shame to lose them because processes aren't in place to properly teach them what they need to know in order to be successful.

Mary agrees. She says, "To coin a phrase from our firm, we don't like putting people in jello molds, but you do have to give them popsicle sticks...otherwise they end up being a shapeless mess with no support at all."