Industry Insights

When two top candidates make it to the final stage, choosing between them can be surprisingly difficult — and waiting too long risks losing both. To decide with confidence, take a long-term view by considering each candidate’s future growth potential, not just their ability to fill today’s needs. Look closely at cultural fit by having them interact with your team to see who aligns best with your workplace environment. Use objective testing — technical, cognitive, and personality — to gain an evidence-based comparison beyond interviews and résumés. And if both candidates are truly outstanding, consider whether hiring both could be a strategic advantage, depending on budget and workload. If you do select only one, keep the other warm through ongoing connection, as they may be a strong future hire.

The blog outlines two effective ways to integrate pre-hire testing into your recruitment process to improve decision-making and reduce time spent on unsuitable candidates. Both strategies lead to faster, more focused hiring and can result in offers being made within a week. The post invites readers to share their hiring processes via a LinkedIn poll and offers support for firms wanting help with testing.

Hiring managers often struggle to get specific, practical insights from personality profiles—like whether a candidate will work independently, embrace technology, or adapt to change. Accountests has developed a quick-reference table that connects common business concerns with the relevant Big Five personality traits measured in their Accountants Personality Profile Questionnaire (APPQ). The table highlights which traits to examine for issues such as business development, leadership, adaptability, and AI-readiness, along with the risks of scoring too low or too high on each. This tool helps employers interpret personality reports more effectively, tailor interview questions, and plan onboarding strategies.

AI tools that claim high accuracy in detecting “cheating” during video interviews often exaggerate their capabilities. A so-called 90% accuracy rate still means a 10% error margin—potentially labeling one in ten innocent candidates as dishonest. False positives erode trust, damage employer brands, and filter out the very talent businesses need most. The real benchmark for any hiring tech: accuracy, fairness, and freedom from bias.If a tool can’t prove those, it doesn’t belong in your hiring process.

Many accounting firms fear that testing might drive candidates away. In reality, firms using testing effectively find the opposite — it attracts stronger candidates, improves engagement, and speeds up hiring. By clearly explaining the purpose and benefits of testing, firms create a more focused, fair, and positive recruitment experience. Testing allows candidates to demonstrate their abilities in new ways, helps employers tailor onboarding and training, and leads to faster, higher-quality hires. When done right, testing becomes a secret hiring weapon that boosts both candidate experience and long-term retention.

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

Hiring globally brings valuable diversity but adds complexity, especially when assessing cognitive ability in candidates who speak English as a second language (ESL). Accountests has developed a Bookkeeper and Admin Ability (Cognitive Test) Suite that is accessible and insightful across language backgrounds.

When a client urgently calls asking for help reviewing resumes for a key finance hire, it can feel risky for the accounting firm—especially when there’s no obvious benefit and plenty of downside if things go wrong. A poor hire could reflect badly on the firm if the candidate lacks the technical skills needed, even though the firm’s involvement was informal.

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).

The author recounts a time during a hectic work period—managing a large team, under intense deadlines—when they were told to "just find another body" to help out. With no time to spare, they selected an internal employee based purely on availability and a brief chat with their manager (who was all too eager to let them go). The result: a hasty, unstructured hiring decision with lasting regret.

This blog emphasizes the importance of creating a standout first impression to attract and secure top accounting talent, even when the job itself is similar to others on the market. It outlines three simple, zero-cost steps to set your firm apart.

The accounting industry faces a major talent gap, with too many open positions and too few qualified professionals. Retention is becoming as crucial as recruitment, but some firms are pulling back from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts due to political pressures. This move risks alienating key talent, particularly women and underrepresented professionals, who are already underrepresented in leadership roles.