Industry Insights

This article focuses on helping accounting firms hire and develop people who can effectively act as the “Human in the Loop” when reviewing AI-generated work and implementing AI responsibly. Rather than discussing AI itself, it explains how existing APPQ Personality and Critical Reasoning assessments can identify individuals with the skills needed to oversee AI outputs.

The blog explains that hiring accounting and bookkeeping professionals is difficult because many strong candidates are already employed and may only be casually exploring opportunities. Employers should therefore focus not just on technical qualifications, but also on understanding a candidate’s real motivations, career goals, and readiness to change jobs.

Firms apply far more rigor to buying software or equipment than they do to hiring employees—even though hiring mistakes often carry greater long-term costs. The blog argues that hiring should adopt the same “trust but verify” mindset as procurement, using more systematic, evidence-based methods to reduce risk and improve outcomes.

AI is rapidly reshaping accounting by automating routine tasks like transaction coding and reconciliations. As a result, accountants are shifting from “doers” to “reviewers,” responsible for interpreting and validating AI-generated outputs. While AI improves efficiency, it can still produce errors that appear correct, making human oversight essential. This shift makes curiosity a critical skill.

AI is transforming accounting by automating much of the technical work that traditionally trained new accountants, such as reconciliations and preparing accounts. While this increases efficiency, it also removes the hands-on experience that historically helped professionals develop judgment, pattern recognition, and a deep understanding of financial information. Without spending years working through the numbers, future accountants may enter advisory roles earlier but lack the experience needed to interpret business context and ask the right questions. As a result, the profession may face an “experience gap,” where professionals are skilled at using AI but less familiar with how financial data is built and understood. To address this, firms will need to intentionally redesign how accountants develop—through mentoring, real business exposure, and critical thinking about financial insights—ensuring that human expertise continues to complement advancing technology.

Although only 2% of accountants reach partner level, research from the BDO Alliance USA Emerging Leaders program shows there is no single “ideal” personality type that determines leadership success. Emerging leaders were not significantly different from the broader accountant population; they were simply slightly stronger in areas like calmness, self-confidence, and teamwork, while tending to score lower in emotional stability — particularly resilience under pressure.

Many organizations assume that bigger bonuses lead to better performance. However, research suggests the link isn’t that simple. For accounting firms, the takeaway is clear: bonuses may change behavior, but they don’t necessarily improve results. They can undermine intrinsic motivation, fuel internal competition, and fail to lift high performers.

Hiring offshore talent can bring huge benefits to accounting firms — but only if you know what to look for in interviews. Offshore candidates often come from different cultural and professional contexts, which means certain “red flags” may actually be normal. Check out the six signs to pay attention to, and how to interpret them

The blog highlights the growing challenge of talent churn in accounting firms and emphasizes the urgency of addressing it. At Accountests, the team is collaborating with the Accounting MOVE Project, the Center for Accounting Transformation, and CPA Trendlines to support a study that aims to provide accounting firms with insights on how to reduce turnover and foster better workplace cultures.

In public accounting, hiring the wrong person doesn't just lead to financial loss—it causes partner stress and harms team morale. Drawing on 25 years of experience, the blog introduces a Bad Hire Calculator, which helps firms quantify the true cost of hiring mistakes based on specific internal practices (e.g., use of recruiters, firing timeline).

This article discusses the challenge of assessing project management skills, particularly for accounting managers handling multiple clients. It suggests that interviews alone are often insufficient for evaluating these skills, as candidates may not provide a complete picture. Instead, personality assessments, specifically those based on the Big-5/OCEAN model, are recommended for a deeper understanding of a candidate's suitability for project management.

An accounting graduate, transparent about their lack of experience, faces overwhelming tasks and no support in a residential remodeling company. This illustrates the repercussions of inadequate hiring practices and the necessity for comprehensive onboarding and training programs to prevent stress on employees and risks to business integrity.