In a time of unprecedented demand for accounting professionals, the ability to recruit and retain talent is proving to be a decisive competitive factor.

Because of the so-called staffing shortage, professionals are clocking more hours, firms are turning away work, partners are postponing retirement and mergers are surging.

Recruiting has become every bit as important to survival and growth as finding clients, according to Mark Koziel, the AICPA’s senior technical manager in charge of practice management. “Making recruiting a systemized function of the firm is critical,” Koziel says.

It’s easy to understand why when you consider that the profession is onboarding (bringing new people on board) new recruits at nearly twice the pace as three years ago. Last year the profession inducted 36,112 new college graduates, according to the AICPA. That’s a record in the history of the study — perhaps in the history of the profession — and 83 percent more than the number in 2004, which was the last time the survey was run.

While the biggest firms may dominate the recruiting fairs and employment listings, the surprising fact is that local firms are actually hiring more people. The AICPA study suggests that roughly two in three new graduates are taking their first jobs at firms with fewer than 50 CPAs on staff.

The local firms that seem to be winning the talent wars don’t always do it on salary or perks. More often, it’s about offering a clear sense of mission, strong vision and solid values, according to Koziel. “It’s not about size,” he says. “It’s about structure.”

Ambitious young accountants can be attracted by the possibility that they’ll be handling their own book of business sooner, rather than later, at a smaller firm.

To help local firms get started, Koziel is teaching them how to sit down with their staff members to have honest and probing conversations, asking questions like: Where do we want to take the firm? Why do we stay? What keeps this firm going? What have we found here that we haven’t found elsewhere?

Then document it, Koziel says. The seeds of developing the mission, the vision and the values statements that can guide the firm, sustain the team and attract new members will come from this process.

MORE INFORMATION: Get talent management tools at the AICPA PCPS Human Capital Center.

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