Learn How You Benefit Retaining A Tax Recruiter

There are many things that can go right in a tax search and there are many things that can go wrong during a tax search. There is a mile wide divide in how search firms operate on your behalf. This post is about things that can happen to you while recruiting for the best tax candidates for your tax organization or connecting with an organization who needs your tax expertise. Either way, you are smart to work with the best tax recruiter you can find who has a proven track record in tax professional search. You should first ask for a tax recruiters’ experience. We always show our client list of successes: https://www.taxconnections.com/tax-executive-search-services

One Question You Should Never Ask A Retained Tax Recruiter

Whenever an experienced recruiter hears this one question, they feel minimized. The question is “Can you go to your files and send me some resumes?” The hiring authority asks, as if it is easy, to find a technically skilled tax candidate from files of thousands of potential prospects. It is not easy to do this work since an expert in tax search must do a labor intensive job of researching thousands of potential candidates, calling tax candidates to present the client tax job description, obtaining permission from a candidate before presenting to a client, screen the tax candidate for hard skills( technical) and soft skills (interpersonal skills),help tax candidates to clean up their resume to highlight their technical knowledge, making an introduction between client and tax candidate and so much more. This is not a five-minute scan of resumes in your database, it could easily take an expert 5 hours, 5 days,  5 weeks or 5 months to identify and screen the right tax candidate(s).

An expert retained tax recruiter takes pride in doing a great job screening tax candidates for a company, they never just pull a random resume like it is a 5-minute job. The job of an expert in tax executive search is much more than that. So please do not ask an expert tax recruiter to just pull resumes from their database about top tax talent since the  search process is much more involved. The tax recruiter feels minimized when a hiring manager communicates they want to see resumes. Finding tax professionals with qualified technical skills, interpersonal skills and meets the needs of both parties is an important part of the tax search and screening process.

What A Good And Bad Tax Recruiter Will Do For You

A lot of key decision-makers miss a great opportunity when establishing a relationship with a tax recruiter. You may have your favorite tax recruiters you have built a trusted, professional relationship with over the years, and this is smart. The important thing is to start building relationships with a tax recruiter as they are a valuable public relations tool for you throughout the year by telling the tax community your tax organization is the one to work for when an opportunity arises. This is how you build a hugely successful tax organizations.

While representing clients and staffing of their tax departments, I am like a puppy chomping on a bone to ensure that our client always gets access to the very best tax candidates available in the market. Most of the best tax candidates we speak with are not out actively looking for another opportunity, and they would never send their resume into a company portal. Many tax candidates want the utmost privacy and will only allow their qualifications to be presented by a tax recruiter who will protect their identity.

If a tax recruiter sends your resume to a company without getting your permission first in each and every instance, you should fire them immediately! You have no control over a tax recruiter who would do this to you. What if you sent your resume in on your own? What if you gave permission to another tax recruiter? A recruiter who behaves like this will cause problems for you so be careful and do not hesitate to fire a recruiter who is operating this way. If you have a question how to handle a tax recruiter who is behaving badly, call me for advice how to handle a particular situation(kat@taxconnections.com).858.999.0053

How Is A Retained Tax Recruiter Different From A Contingency Recruiter

It is important to understand the difference between a retained tax recruiter and a contingency tax recruiter. You own the time of a retained tax recruiter; they are working for you and dedicated to your cause every day until the job is done. Retained recruiters typically charge one third of the estimated search fee upfront, one third when a short list of ten tax candidates are presented and the final third when the candidate actually starts with the company, the day the tax professional is on the company payroll. Really great retained recruiters should also be serving as a strong public relations firm about you and your tax organization throughout the entire year. I let tax professionals know who is running a great tax organization and make introductions for these tax leaders to other tax leaders. It is helpful to connect my client companies with other tax executives so they can help and support each other on similar tax and audit issues.

On the other hand, a contingency tax recruiter works for free and only gets paid when a company hires a tax candidate they refer to a company.  Many companies want to work on a contingency basis so they do not have to pay for the services if they find someone on their own. They often get used and may talk to a company tax executive or human resource executive once who tells the recruiter what they need, then never returns the recruiters phone call when the recruiter has spent valuable time searching for tax candidates to present to a company. The company is thinking “ I just found a new tax candidate for free,  and I no longer want to hear from this contingency tax recruiter who spent so much time looking, and now I am going to ghost them. This happens frequently folks and often puts the hard-working contingency tax recruiter in a bad financial position. Contingency Recruiters get burned many times before working for you. This is the truth, and you should know it.

Also, a contingency recruiter may not be working on your tax job every day. They rule their own time and do not have to work on your project everyday for free. Every day new opportunities are presented to contingency recruiters so having a bunch of contingency tax recruiters never guarantees success. These recruiters know you are asking them to work for free, so if they do not work on your project, it is just business for them since you pay them nothing. Be wary of contingency recruiters who tell you they work with a company when they have no formal agreement in place with the company!

TaxConnections Executive Search services offers a third option. We work on a Performance Retainer Agreement which is when a partial retainer is paid upfront and the remainder when we find a tax professional the company hires. This enables the company to allow their HR department to compete with us to find the candidate and ensures the company has an expert retained tax recruiter constantly sourcing the best candidate available throughout the market. The company is covered 360 degrees on their open tax jobs. TaxConnections Executive Search Services is your company insurance policy your open tax jobs has a team working on recruiting for you every day of the week for optimum results. Yes, we work weekends because tax professionals  often want to talk comfortably on weekends and it speeds up the recruitment process.

What Is A Fair Recruiting Fee To Pay

A fair fee to pay a tax recruiter is 25% of first years compensation. We are a boutique retained tax recruitment firm and never charge on all the extras the global retained firms charge companies. They charge alot on stock, LTIPs, add on bonuses, etc. For our tax executive search services, the first years compensation includes base and an estimated bonus. Some organizations have low bases and high bonuses, and some have high bases and low bonuses, so it works out fairly with our Performance Retainer Agreements. We also provide a one-year guarantee on our searches.

When conducting tax search properly, plan on 90-100 days from start of first phone call to us to completion of fully researching the market for tax candidates. Add another thirty days for resignation from previous company to start with new company. During the final quarter of any calendar year, a tax executive will have an annual bonus due, so be prepared to buy out the annual bonus with a signing bonus, if need be, as the tax executive will not walk away so easily. I am educating you now so you can prepare for these year-end surprises.

If you are anticipating the retirement of your current tax executive, give yourself one year for an easy transition, and six months for a tight transition.

We are now working towards developing a limited number of clients who have multiple tax jobs open. We understand the company(firm) more deeply and we also serve as a public relations tool for the firm by referring them new clients, too.

Do you have a need for your tax organization? Make A Request Here:

https://www.taxconnections.com/tax-executive-search-services