Even as they increasingly look to their in-house recruiters to help them fill jobs, corporate tax accounting leaders say they expect to lean more heavily this year on search firms to fill jobs.
With 69% of the 356 surveyed leaders saying they expect to replace turnover and grow their departments, just over 8 in 10 of them will rely on their HR staff for help recruiting. They’ll also use job boards to find talent, which 49% report is “difficult” or “very difficult” to find.
However, 46% say they’ll also use contingency firms and 23% will turn to retained search firms to fill vacancies.
The 4th annual Tax Hiring Outlook from TaxTalent and Tax Search, found that the number of companies expecting to fill director level and higher jobs
jumped from 8% in 2014 to 12% this year. That may be the reason, the report noted, for the increase in planned reliance on retained search firms.
“One of the reasons we believe the retained search is expecting a 44% increase in activity is a 50% relative increase in hiring of director and above positions projected for 2015. This is also combined with an increase in the use of HR in the recruiting of tax professionals. With 49% of respondents determining that hiring in 2015 will be “difficult” or “very difficult”, this will create a challenging hiring environment for tax departments.”