Recruitment agencies could solve accountants’ hiring troubles

Though the accountancy profession is among the most robust in today’s economic climate, it is still not immune to failure to attract new people. To use the ICAEW’s words, “there is a lot of discontent swirling around in the UK employment scene”, as its insights suggest that more than a third of the UK’s workforce are currently thinking about resigning, while 24% are actively scouting out better paying jobs, and a fifth are said to have already left for better roles in the past 18 months. 

TPF Recruitment, a recruitment agency that started 18 months ago in May 2021 whilst knee deep in the throes of lockdown, was set up by its director Tristan Finch to build on his own specialism and knowledge that he gained from within the accountancy practice market.

After leaving the military where he worked in air traffic control, Finch started working for other recruitment agencies where he discovered he had a knack for flipping businesses from “a desk that was turning over £20,000 a year” to one that was turning £400,000. He began to build a specialism within the accountancy field over seven years and he soon felt that lockdown was “the perfect time to take the leap” to establish his own agency. 

When asked about his reasons for wanting to run his own recruitment operation, Finch said that he wanted “the ability to work with a client of a very similar size” because that seemed to be what a lot of his clients were looking for. Many of the firms Finch and his team work with say they would much rather this sort of arrangement than being serviced by a large corporate business. 

TPF Recruitment was a one man band in its inception, with Finch running the agency from home during lockdown. In the following six months after the business first started, he bought an office space and his partner, Abigail Grieve, joined him in the business. 

They’ve recently taken on a third pair of hands, but Finch maintains that he is still “very much hands-on” in the day-to-day running of the business. He still enjoys what he calls the physical recruitment that goes on in this line of work. A large proportion of his position, Finch told me, is still all about meeting the clients and the applicants, and pairing them up for interviews.  

Given that the accounting industry has also been disturbed by shaky recruitment and retention, Finch has found a real demand for recruitment firms in this sector. He has found that the accountancy firms he recruits for have roughly 250 vacancies in total, while on his books he only has 20 or 25 people who are actively looking for employment.   

“We have companies asking us everyday to recruit for them and we have to turn them away,” he said. “There is a ridiculous volume of vacancies because the accountants we recruit for are extremely short of candidates.”

For such a young business, TPF has managed to grow quite an impressive contact sheet of accountancy firms. Finch says that news of his recruitment company spread primarily via word-of-mouth, many having caught wind of their good track record; when one firm had a good experience hiring through them, they recommended the business to another firm if they are finding recruitment to be particularly tedious. The venture has “snowballed”, according to Finch, and the phone is always ringing from businesses all around the UK. 

However, Finch didn’t go into business without an extensive network of accountants as contacts. He recognises that these relationships have given him an advantage, as he says a lot of people that don’t specialise in this sector don’t know where to begin building bridges.  

According to Finch, his recruitment company, as well as many other recruitment companies that specialise in the accountancy sector, have found that more and more accountancy firms are resorting to using agencies. 

“Accountancy firms are unfortunately unable to attract candidates, so because of this reason, they are resorting to recruitment agencies,” he said. 

This spike in demand reportedly means that TPF Recruitment is four times busier than they would be under normal circumstances. Finch tells me that their normal job flow is approximately 70 vacancies, but currently, they are operating at about 250 vacancies. All of this means that prospective employees looking to fill these vacancies are undoubtedly at an advantage. 

“It’s easier for a candidate to go to a recruitment consultant,” he said. “For them to present them with all the best opportunities on the market, to manage their negotiation of their job package, rather than go into a business directly.”

Finch also admitted that this path to employment is far more convenient, from a candidate’s perspective, as they don’t need to “go to the employers directly”. This also means that employers have to go to recruiters to find employees, so the agency provides a space for people that are on the same page. 

There’s also a question of what employers find most appealing in applicants today. Finch has observed that the biggest quality that accountancy firms are looking for is often good communication skills, as the work the prospective candidate will have to do is “typically” in a client-facing capacity. Besides this rather large prerequisite, successful candidates also tend to have strong academics going back to their GCSEs and A-levels through to degree level, as well as any professional studies.  

Another thing that successful candidates have in common tends to be experience in the role. It appears as though seasoned accountants fare better when searching for positions through consultants, whereas school leavers and graduate students have other ways. Top 50 firms, which boast more resources, tend to have graduate programmes that allow for a certain number of trainees to be employed within their firms, while others have special partnerships with local schools. 

Finch is proud to say that his consultancy has become the biggest provider of accountancy practice candidates in the Kent region. It’s been so popular in fact, that at the moment the TPF team is also focusing on Sussex, Surrey, and some of London, with further plans to expand their locations to the northern counties potentially in the works. Since its inception, the agency has placed a total of 200 candidates into local firms, with ambitions to place many more in the coming year.