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How to scope a Controller search
Start a Search Financial Headhunters Salary Guide
Financial Headhunters: Five decisions to make before you talk to a single candidate.
This is what we do all day: recruit accounting, finance, banking and insurance professionals.
- Controller
- CFO
- VP Finance
- FP&A Director
- Accounting Manager
- Director of Accounting
- Assistant Controller
- Tax Director
- Treasury Manager
- Internal Audit Director
- Senior Accountant
- Financial Analyst
- Head of Financial Reporting
- Commercial Lender
- Chief Credit Officer
- Business Systems Finance Lead
Decide what the seat fixes
A Controller hired to clean up reporting is not the same person as one hired to support a sale. Write down the first year in three sentences.
Set the scope in numbers you know
Entities, headcount, close days, systems and the reporting package. Those facts help candidates judge fit faster than adjectives.
Agree on who decides
Name the interviewers and the decision maker. Searches slow down when the owner, the CFO and the sponsor each want a different person.
Be ready on pay
Know your range and whether there is equity or a bonus. Candidates ask in the first call.
Be honest about gaps
No Controller role is perfect. Tell us what is hard about it. The right candidate will be glad you did.
What should you send or read next?
Ask who currently decides that the books are ready. If the owner still resolves every unfamiliar accounting issue, the next controller may need to take over more judgment than the job description suggests. If a CFO already owns policy and financing, the controller's brief may instead focus on close ownership and team management. Those are different appointments even when the title is identical.
Walk through the last close from the unfinished account to the reported result. Find out where approvals stopped and who had to correct the work. Then describe which decisions the new controller will own. A demand for faster reporting does not explain whether the problem is a missing reviewer, unclear responsibility or information arriving late from operations.
Make the business setting visible. Contractor accounting includes job-level questions that a general corporate close may not answer. A multi-entity property business needs someone who can explain balances and ownership reporting across separate entities. A lender-facing business may need the controller to prepare information that supports a covenant discussion. Name that work before deciding which prior title counts as relevant experience.
Discuss the boundaries with the hiring manager before screening starts. If the controller will not own treasury or tax planning, say who does. If the team is small, explain how much detailed accounting the controller will still perform. A candidate should be able to understand the desk they are considering, and the employer should know what will be checked before agreeing to an interview.
Which related hiring decisions are worth comparing?
Questions people ask
What is the main distinction in how to scope a controller search?
Ask who currently decides that the books are ready. If the owner still resolves every unfamiliar accounting issue, the next controller may need to take over more judgment than the job description suggests. If a CFO already owns policy and financing, the controller's brief may instead focus on close ownership and team management. Those are different appointments even when the title is identical.
What should an employer clarify before acting?
Walk through the last close from the unfinished account to the reported result. Find out where approvals stopped and who had to correct the work. Then describe which decisions the new controller will own. A demand for faster reporting does not explain whether the problem is a missing reviewer, unclear responsibility or information arriving late from operations.