What Can a Small CPA Firm Do to Recruit and Retain Staff?

There is a good article in the July 2008 CPA Journal by Mark Steadman called “What Small CPA Firms are Doing to Recruit and Retain Staff“.

In this article, Mark gives some good background on prior surveys done on this topic (most notably, the one by the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section) and provides the results of his own survey. A few of the results follow.

Top 5 Recruiting Activities

• Employee referrals
• Internships
• Firm website
• Personal relationships with college faculty
• Increased starting salary

Top 5 Retention Activities

• Open door policy
• Flextime
• Paid overtime or time off
• Improved technology to reduce mundane work
• Providing professional growth opportunity

Note: The average size of the responding firms was 10 professionals, so some of these activities need to be scaled for smaller firms.

The very best part of the article in my view is the ending comments about the advantages of smaller firms including:

• More relaxed environment
• Career advancement opportunity
• Skills development in multiple area such as tax, audit and consulting
• Ability to work with clients directly and help them grow
• See the “whole picture” of a client business

The smaller firm that can broadcast these advantages via existing employees, their website and other means will surely do better in the competitive CPA recruiting world.