Grooming Your Superstars For Tomorrow

Any practitioner with an eye on the future should be looking for qualities in their staff that indicate that they might be ‘a cut above the rest’.

Indeed, almost every firm I help with their recruiting needs tell me, among other things, that:

· We want someone who is technically excellent
· We want someone who can develop relationships with clients
· We want someone who can find new clients
· We want someone who can ‘Mentor’ people or be ‘Mentored’
· We want someone who has real partnership potential

And that’s commendable. If you want to be the best, you’ll need to hire, retain and develop the best.

It sounds quite simple, in principle, but in reality there is a finite pool of talent that fall into this group.

The recruiting process is such that you have to ‘kiss a lot of frogs’ in order to find the ‘handsome Prince’ that the client seeks.

Even when someone who meets all the client’s criteria is identified and approached, they might not be interested in a move when I first speak with them.

The reasons why could be wide and varied:

· the timing might not be right for them
· the culture of the client firm might not be a good fit
· they might be on the ‘fast-track’ to partnership already
· they might have an incorrect preconception about my client firm
· and a host of other potential obstacles preventing the individual to make a move

However, if you have a strong value proposition for prospective new recruits, the role of the recruiter is to act as the client’s ambassador and to spread the word.

On that basis if you have already developed a track record of finding, hiring, developing and promoting talent in your firm, then I have a number of success stories to quote the ‘Doubting Thomas’ out there.

Even when recruiting Co-Op students, the best talent is in high demand and having a proven success rate in ‘growing your own Partners’ will make you a highly attractive destination for the best and brightest students.

This state of affairs is not the exclusive domain of the ‘Big Four’. Indeed, many a smaller firm can cultivate a culture of ‘home-grown’ Partners.

But success in this field will not, on its own, guarantee success in recruiting and retaining the ‘superstars’ of tomorrow. Additional key qualities better candidates seek in a potential new position includes:

· Continuous personal growth and development
· Opportunities for a wider variety of work
· Learning new skills
· Greater level of client contact
· More supervision of staff
· Reviewing working paper files
· Greater autonomy and involvement in the decision making process

Have you noticed that I am yet to mention money?

People rarely move for less money, but if the almighty dollar is the only motivation for making the move, they won’t be getting past me and into my client.

Financial rewards, I believe, see to themselves, in most cases. An old cliché that ‘cream rises to the top’ comes to mind. Employers are no dummies. They seek counsel on salary levels from a variety of sources and want to ensure that they are offering competitive packages to their people.

The greater rewards come when an individual reaches a level of achievement over and above expectations – be it higher chargeable hours, greater client service effort, winning new business or successfully coaching subordinates – if the results achieved or the effort expended are beyond the call of duty, then in nine cases out of ten, the financial rewards will come.

Grooming your own people to become the superstars of tomorrow takes a certain amount of commitment. It’s not easy and it’s not a quick fix, but with strategic recruiting, careful planning and sound execution, you too can grow your own partners and have a home-made succession plan for your own retirement when the time is right for you.

With this in mind, it is with great pleasure that I can announce the creation, with The Bottom Line, of Canadian Public Accounting’s Top 40 Under 40.

This is a year-long project that I am working on with Canada’s Public Accounting profession, to identify the top 40 ‘superstars’ of tomorrow’s public accounting firms.

So, if you know of any ‘high-flyers’ under 40 years of age, why not nominate them, and if selected, they’ll be interviewed and featured in the Top 40 Under 40, to be published in The Bottom Line in May 2005.

To nominate a friend, colleague, partner, manager or anyone within the public accounting domain with high potential that you feel justifies a place in this prestigious table, please call me direct at 905-257-2284, fax me at 905-257-0884 or email me at steve@mfagroup.com.

© 2004, MFA Group Inc