hire experienced people, or train them yourself?

how to invest your mentoring time where it matters most.

question: we were looking for an additional experienced person since september and hired someone with five years experience in mid-november, but she said she couldn’t start until january.  she said she had work she had to finish up.  two days before christmas she called to tell me her firm made her a “better” offer and she decided to stay there. it meant we had to enter busy season short a person.  this seems to happen a lot.  what do you suggest? read more →

‘unprecedented demand’ for accounting grads

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cpa firm hiring tops 40,000 for first time ever.

by rick telberg

bolstering reports of a suddenly surging profession with a high demand for top talent, a new survey of colleges and firms by the aicpa shows that cpa firms are hiring a record number of graduates.

at the same time, the pipeline of accounting students is bulging, suggesting to some that the continuing high demand for new recruits can be met by newly minted graduates for the next few years.

this will come as good news to firms facing growing new-business opportunities, tougher competition and a growing need for entry-level staff.

it does not, however, help alleviate the catastrophic stall in growth dating back to the 1990s with the spread of the so-called 150-hour rule that has left the profession with a gaping hole in its succession and business continuity strategies. the profession, already facing a succession crisis due to the aging-out of the baby boomers, now finds itself with a dearth of 40- and 50-something senior managers and junior partners to take over management and control – a fact that a record supply of new graduates won’t correct for 10 or 20 years, if ever.

 

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the good news for hiring: pipeline fills with huge supply of talent.

the report shows: read more →

what’s next in cpe?

bob jennings
bob jennings

the live, in-person seminar reborn, refashioned for the web.

by bob jennings
jennings seminars

in the roughly forty years since continuing professional education first started for accountants, there have been three major changes in the way to obtain cpe.

the first major change came from the presentations of the venerable sidney kess, who brought practicality and examples to an arena that had previously been occupied by pedantic and often academic educators. in the early years of cpe his shining light of the highest quality cpe was held to be the pinnacle for all other presenters.

the next era became the era of boredom. read more →