Article
Why strong finance people ignore job postings
Start a Search Financial Headhunters Salary Guide
Financial Headhunters: Postings reach people who are looking. Your best hire may not be.
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
They are busy and employed
A good Controller is in the middle of a close, a budget or an audit. Job boards are not on their daily list. If they see your posting, it is by luck.
Postings read the same
Most finance postings list the same duties and the same software. A strong candidate cannot tell why yours is different, so they move on.
What to do instead
Talk to people directly. A short, specific message about the seat, the owners and the first year gets more attention than a posting.
- Say why the seat is open
- Name the scope in plain terms
- Be honest about the gaps in the role
- Give pay information early
What should you send or read next?
A person who is running a clean close may not have looked at a careers page in months. Their attention is on the next reconciliation, the operating review and the team they already manage. Posting an opening does not put your business in front of that person. Direct contact has to explain why the seat is worth a conversation without assuming that a busy accountant wants a new title.
We ask what would change in the actual job. A controller may want a reporting line that lets them resolve an approval problem. A senior accountant may want to own an area instead of covering whoever is absent. Someone in branch banking may want a schedule and service model they can assess honestly. Those reasons are specific. A message about an exciting opportunity does not answer them.
The employer also needs to be ready to explain the difficult parts. If the books are behind, say so. If the position is on site, do not introduce a remote option that will disappear later. A working candidate can compare your description with the job they already know. An incomplete account of the opening wastes the first conversation and can make a later correction look like a change of terms.
Direct outreach is not a promise that every person contacted will move. Some will not consider a change, and some will have conditions your business cannot meet. The useful outcome is a conversation with someone whose experience and reasons for moving fit the brief. That is why a recruiter should explain qualification decisions to the employer rather than presenting contact activity as evidence that the search is going well.
Which related hiring decisions are worth comparing?
Questions people ask
What is the main distinction in why strong finance people ignore job postings?
A person who is running a clean close may not have looked at a careers page in months. Their attention is on the next reconciliation, the operating review and the team they already manage. Posting an opening does not put your business in front of that person. Direct contact has to explain why the seat is worth a conversation without assuming that a busy accountant wants a new title.
What should an employer clarify before acting?
We ask what would change in the actual job. A controller may want a reporting line that lets them resolve an approval problem. A senior accountant may want to own an area instead of covering whoever is absent. Someone in branch banking may want a schedule and service model they can assess honestly. Those reasons are specific. A message about an exciting opportunity does not answer them.