For those of us who experienced the impact of the last major tax reform under President Ronald Reagan, I have a prescient message for you “ there will be a lot of new opportunity for tax professionals.” During the TRA 1986  there was a surge of hiring in corporate tax organizations as company executives scrambled to figure out the impact of tax reform legislation on their businesses. Behind  the scenes, we see companies already scrambling to get ahead of the changes about to appear with tax reform. The surge in new jobs and opportunities President Trump talks about is real and it is about to impact the corporate tax profession. The number of tax search experts at the top of our profession who were around at that time you can count on one hand and we all know what is about to happen with tax reform from our previous experiences. There are no computer bots ready to figure out the tax impact for companies as it takes pure human intelligence to research the impact on every tax organization.

Recently, we have been talking to corporate executives discussing their hiring and retention initiatives as they break out in front of the pack for the talent. They are calling me privately to discuss tax compensation for tax executives and requesting our Corporate Tax Executive Compensation Report. Companies are having a challenging time finding tax executives they need these days and they do not know why. There are many more companies who have grown to the level to bring tax in-house but there are other circumstances most company executives fail to consider and I tell them so.  Allow me to share with you three major reasons that executive tax talent pool is not knocking at your corporate door and responding to them online. Most of the corporate tax executives we work with will not send their resumes into a company resume portal. They are much to risk averse of losing their current role to send their resume into a company resume portal to people they do not know. In fact,  they tell me they feel like their resume disappears into a big black hole and does not give them any sense of security to keep their current job or their curiosity for a new role private.

Secondly, many of the searches we conduct have resumes of candidates sitting in the portal the company human resource consultants never identifies. The reason for this is that human resource consultants are often too inexperienced to read and understand a tax professionals skills on a resume. This happens constantly as human resource professionals struggle to juggle hundreds of openings across multiple technical roles outside of tax.

Thirdly, search for corporate tax professionals is a people business and no amount of computer activity will ever replace an experienced tax search consultant’s ability to thoroughly research, identify, investigate and screen for tax candidates for highly technical management roles that require strong written and verbal communication skills.

Even as the Founder of www.taxconnections.com , the leading media platform for tax professional branding and visibility, I can tell you that corporate tax professionals must be approached differently than the overall tax community. You must go after them as they will not come to you through resume portals. Corporate tax executives  will return calls to people they know and trust. It takes years to build up this trust and like the old EF Hutton tagline….when EF Hutton calls, people listen… when we call, tax professionals listen. Understanding how corporate tax professionals think and react towards achieving more success is something you will never learn or experience through a corporate resume portal.

Having a strong in-house corporate tax team is what helps companies outperform competitors and attract the very best to their tax organization. Properly staffed tax organizations save companies millions(billions) annually depending on their size and structure. Having built corporate tax organizations for our corporate clients around the world, I can assure you getting the right tax teams in-house makes a world of difference to companies.

Stealth corporate executive teams are now quietly moving ahead of tax reform to secure the very best tax talent available to them in the market. They are simply not waiting for a resume to appear on the desks of in-house recruiters. Tax reform is about to create a very busy and joyful Christmas for corporate tax professionals around the world. Merry Christmas!

Have questions? Contact Kat Jennings.