Corporations searching for tax executives are about to experience an awakening in securing qualified, highly technical corporate tax talent. The best way to describe this awakening is sharing greatly similar discussions with several Fortune 500 companies recently. Each of them admitted they were seeing very few qualified tax professionals for the roles they had open. They even admitted they were seeing only one or two qualified candidates for each opening. During this post, I will peel back the veil of what is really happening behind the scenes in securing corporate tax executive talent these days.

There are many obstacles to your success in attracting qualified corporate tax expertise than ever before; you will benefit knowing what these challenges are so you can address them.

Here are the reasons companies face challenges hiring corporate tax executives today.

Tax Executives Do Not Send Resumes To Company Portals

Most of the tax executives we work with are not out actively looking but would confidentially consider a career move if approached privately and confidentially. This leaves a world of possibilities undiscovered by most companies; so you need an expert to actively go out and recruit corporate tax executive talent. Technically gifted tax executives generally do not appear through company resume portals.

Lack Of Understanding Of Tax Executives By HR And CFOs

Many of the CFOs privately share they know very little about tax. I genuinely appreciate when they tell us this as we work extra hard to find them a tax executive who can break complex tax issues down into a language they can understand. Many times they do not know what they want or need and we will ask them a series of questions to help them focus in on the priorities. Our goal is to find a tax executive who works closely and successfully with the CFO.

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies make is having the lead tax executive report to the Controller. For the record, Lead Tax Executives want to report to the CFO and not the Controller. Companies who have tax report to the Controller will have a high turnover tax organization. Tax executives do not stay long in these situations.

Many of the HR folks we have spoken to privately shared “I might as well be looking at an aliens resume as a tax professionals resume.”  They are tasked with filling multiple roles within an organization and tax is alien to them. A lot of mistakes are made along the way with inexperienced CFOs or HR folks who may not understand tax. Since we are experts in tax executive search, and we have an outstanding track record of results, we guarantee our executive search work for one year.

Higher Degree Of Tax Education Required In Corporate Tax Roles

Thirty years ago it was typical to see a lead tax executive with an undergraduate degree in Accounting and a CPA. Today, just about every corporate tax job description lists a graduate degree as required. We just completed a study of the Big Four transactions teams and a JD, LL.M or BS, MST is required to get through the front door given that more than eighty percent of these tax professionals now have a graduate degree.

Number Of New Companies Requiring Corporate Tax Expertise

The number of new companies bringing the corporate tax function in-house has grown significantly and they are all competing for the same limited pool of tax executive talent. Recently, we noticed in a two week period of time more than 30 tax director openings within a 30 minute drive in Silicon Valley/San Francisco area. Many of these companies are not getting the search process handled as it should be done. They will waste a lot of time recruiting as there is a real process involved to do it right. These companies will lose millions in tax dollars that could have been saved had they invested in the time to recruit tax professionals the right way. You need an expert in tax search to do it right!

High Number Of Baby Boomers Tax Experts Exiting The Profession

There is high turnover at the corporate tax executive level as large numbers of hard working baby boomer tax professionals leave the profession to retire.

The Noise On Internet Is Like Working Through The Jungle

The word you hear often these days is noise and there is a lot of it everywhere you go online. It is real work getting through the noise and clutter to find the tax expertise you need for your organization. It is not that easy folks as it takes an extraordinary effort!

Retain An Expert Spokesperson Representing Company

Smart companies take the process of finding a tax executive seriously and conduct a thoughtful and thorough approach to the search process. One of the company tax executives I spoke to recently stated “We want to see more than just one candidate our human resources team has sourced; we want the best tax talent we can get for our tax organization.” I assured her that she was definitely taking the right steps to ensure the search process was built around finding highly qualified tax professionals for her tax organization. It will make her job as a Tax Director so much easier with a team of super smart tax professionals supporting her work load all year long.

Want TaxConnections To Conduct A Search For Your Tax Organization?

Contact Kat Jennings or call 858.999.0053.