Having completed searches for more than one thousand management level tax executives over thirty years, our team knows the last quarter of every year is always the busiest. However, this year our clients are dealing with budget cuts that focus on eliminating recruiter fees and software implementations. Armed with the knowledge this is happening to so many of our long-term clients, I want to help you by providing valuable information or what we consider a Life Saver Secret for inhouse tax executives and CFOs needing a tax executive. We are sharing information so you save a lot of time  that would otherwise be wasted dealing with challenges we know are occurring within hundreds of corporate tax organizations today.

Challenges Acquiring Tax Talent Today: Know What The Tax Candidates Are Saying

For Corporate Tax And Financial Leaders who have made the decision to refrain from retaining an expert to conduct a tax search, I will share with you a glimpse of the conversations we are having with sophisticated corporate tax executives in the profession.  The reality is an inexperienced recruiter will cost you access to the best executives available in the market. If you want access to the best in the tax profession, start with someone who is experienced and trusted in the tax search profession.

Learn what many tax executives are telling us in private conversations:

“ I am surprised at the number of inexperienced recruiters calling me about tax roles that are poorly represented by a new generation of recruiters. There is no way I would trust a recruiter to represent me professionally to another company given the statements they made to me. Many recruiters who call me do not really understand what I do or they send an email to me that unprofessionally begins with…Hey!.  I feel like telling them… Hey is for horses:)”

“A recruiter called recently and all they were focused on was diversity, equity, and inclusion; and spent little to no time asking me about my professional goals, education, and technical skills. I found it to be a total turn-off; yet I do not know if it was the company or the recruiter who wanted the information from me. Either way, I was turned off completely to the company and the recruiter.”

“The recruiter could not understand why I was not interested in any tax role reporting to a Controller; and why I would only interview for a lead tax role reporting directly to the CFO. The Head of Tax wants to work hand in hand with the CFO before any transaction takes place. The recruiters lack of understanding and the stated reporting relationship scared me away from considering the company tax lead role.”

“The recruiter quoted me a salary range that is far below market standards for my experience. I knew then and there this was not the person knowledgeable enough to represent me for this role. In fact, a tax executive I know well received an offer from the same company and took the tax job at a much higher salary than was quoted to me about the role. I also discovered it was another recruiter that was retained to represent the company. Why do recruiters tell you about a lead a tax role they have never been hired to represent?”

“The HR representative knew nothing about tax or the role. I sat around for weeks waiting to hear from someone at the company and the long-time lapse with no communication from the corporate human resource representative simply left me disinterested in the company.”

(HINT: When your inhouse recruiter has 30 jobs to fill, they tell me tax roles are the ones that are most challenging for them since most inhouse recruiters lack the knowledge required to recruit for corporate tax roles. They are excited to be working with an expert tax recruiter for sourcing candidates.)

An expert in tax executive search will know exactly how to represent the company so these things do not happen in the first place. Poor representation for a search for a tax executive will often lead to lack of access to star candidates and poor results for the organization. Tax expertise is not an area a company should take chances on hiring just any candidate. It can cost a company millions of tax dollars hiring the wrong tax executive in one of the lead tax management roles. Cutting corners in hiring a tax executive can have great costs to an organization. Support your tax organization in every way and they will save a company millions (billions) in what would otherwise be lost tax dollars to an organization. Listen to and support your tax executives as they want to win for the organization. You want to hire the best of the tax profession, yet many companies are scaring away great performers because of how these prospects are handled during the hiring process!

What Can A Company Do When Management Wants To Conduct A Search For A Tax Leader On Their Own But Do Not Set Aside The Budget For A Search Fee Done By An Expert?

Experienced recruiters understand a company wants to utilize their resources first; however,  there is a solution companies often overlook in getting access to the best talent out there. We often work hand in hand with clients who want to source their own candidates, yet they want the luxury of a professional tax recruiter producing results, too. We offer a Performance Retainer Agreement where our clients pay a partial retainer upfront to have an expert tax recruiter produce candidates who they could never access otherwise, and the client sources candidates on their own and do not have to pay tax recruiting firm a completion fee unless they hire a tax candidate the tax search firm finds for the role. If the company hires a tax candidate the company sources, the company is not obligated to pay anything more. However, the tax recruiting firm is working nonstop to source the best possible candidates while at the same time the company is working diligently to do the same. More importantly, you have two strong forces sourcing tax candidates for the organization. Companies must understand, there are many tax candidates who will never upload their resumes to any company resume portal because their privacy is important to them. This is the great talent pool companies miss; the tax talent that demands privacy when talking to other companies.

TaxConnections Search Services division calls this a Performance Retainer Agreement. It involves a partial fee upfront to search for the best tax candidates for a client, and a final completion fee only when we find a tax candidate you hire. If the company identifies and hires the candidate, we receive no more money for our work reaching out to the best pool of interested tax candidates. The initial retainer ensures the company has a dedicated and experienced search team on the tax search, but also provides the flexibility for the company to source their own candidates. The initial retainer ensures the search firm can pay their search activity overhead. Everyone wins working together on the same team for optimal results.

Another Life Saver Secret Running A Successful Tax Department Is Your Technology – Is What You Have Working For You?

Another Life Saver Secret we know is about the challenges tax departments face with the implementation of tax and technology. What we have heard privately is unconscionable and it has to do with corporations buying software that does not work and is creating problems and mistakes for many organizations. We here these horror stories about a company spending 500K to one million on a software that costs twice as much to implement with the companies internal systems. No one is willing to admit the company made a big mistake investing in a particular software and the company wastes months of time trying to make it work. I recommend to any company to bring in an independent consultant to evaluate all the software you currently have in place who is not selling any software product to you in order to evaluate what you really have first before buying any software. Caveat Emptor…let the buyer beware of any software under consideration before you buy it. Do not trust anything anyone tells you until you have your system looked over by an independent consultant first (ask me for an independent consultant not selling software and I will refer you a reliable one to evaluate what you have in place currently). Be extra cautious of software sellers with big spending budgets to take you to expensive dinners, drink fine wines, enjoy golf outings, private clubs and sports events to get your business. We have watched many c suite executives get burned signing big contracts with expensive software that does not work and the tax executives are dealing with the technical problems someone else created in the organization. It makes great sense for someone with the experience who has already seen and fixed these messes in Fortune 50 to Fortune 500 companies to save you before you make the biggest mistake of your professional life. If it costs you 25K to have an expert come in first to tell you about what you need for your system to work…it will be the best money you ever spent. Find an expert who has dealt with all the mistakes made by big companies and millions spent on software purchases that will never work with your current system. There are only a handful of technology experts I would trust one hundred percent to give you the answers you need to be successful in software selection, contract negotiation, and implementation.

Approaching tax technology strategically takes the pressure off your tax and accounting departments who will have to deal with the mess an unreliable software purchase and implementation has on their professional lives. It is messy out there in software purchase and implementation and a nightmare to see tax executives time wasted dealing with it. Before you bring in any new software, bring in an independent consultant who cares about doing a great job for you first with a thorough evaluation of what you are using now and what will actually work best with your current systems. You will save a considerable amount of time and money for your company doing this right.

Have a technology or tax need for your tax organization? For a qualified referral, contact kat@taxconnections.com