3 Mistakes to Avoid with Candidates When Hiring Team Members for Your Bookkeeping Firm and How to Fix Them
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Hiring team members for your bookkeeping firm is a HUGE step, and sometimes it's just as exciting as it is scary. Most business owners haven't had to hire anyone before, or they had a bad experience in the past so they're worried about doing it again.
When I made my very first hire, it was kind of a disaster! I had overstretched my capacity as a solo bookkeeping business owner and needed help ASAP. Unfortunately, that meant that I was desperately searching for anyone with an interest in working with me and made the quick decision to hire them.
Sooo yeah, I learned a few things the hard way! And that's what we're covering in the blog today.
I've seen other business owners in the accounting indsutry struggle with the same things I did around filtering candidates and hiring "the right one". So in this blog, I wanted to shed light on the top 3 mistakes I notice that come up often around this topic.
Keep reading for allll the details on how to avoid or correct these common mistakes:
Hiring too fast, when you're desperate for the help
Hiring without vetting the candidate properly
Hiring with no intention to train the new team member
There's really no way to know 100% if a candidate will work out long term, but if you follow my simple (and proven) methods, you'll have a much easier time hiring someone to support you!
How to Know When You're Ready to Hire Team Members
This is one of those questions I get a lot, and there isn't one right answer. But a great way to know if you're ready to hire is if you track your time while you're still doing everything yourself. This'll help you create job descriptions and create a role out of the tasks you want to delegate!
You can also use this data to see how many hours you're spending working IN your business, versus ON your business. If you'd rather spend more time working on the backend of your business, you might want to look into hiring an account manager or supporting bookkeeper first.
Finally, make sure you can afford to pay a contractor or employee (whatever you'd prefer) a fair wage before you go out searching.
And if possible, I ALWAYS recommend you have at least a few systems and processes in place before you bring someone onto your team. It's a huge help with onboarding, training, and supporting them.
Mistake #1: Hiring Too Fast
It's such a common struggle I hear inside my community of students (and I've lived myself)! When you get to a point in your business where you realize that you've hit a ceiling OR overbooked yourself, it gets stressful.
So you hire someone...
who's a relative or neighbor with no bookkeeping experience
from a Facebook group that responds to your #jobopp
you find on a job board or is a friend of a friend of a friend
Don't get me wrong, you can totally find a great candidate through any of those channels! It's not necessarily about where you find them, but there are a few ways to make the process a little smoother.
For more information on this, check out this blog about where to find candidates to hire for your bookkeeping firm: Creative Hiring Strategies to Recruit Your Bookkeeping Firm’s Dream Team
Try to plan ahead and prepare yourself to hire WAY before you think you're ready. That means documenting processes from day 1, creating efficient systems, storing company information in Notion, using a project management system, and having long-term goals for the company.
Mistake #2: Do Your Homework (and Make Them Do Theirs)
Want to make sure your candidate has what it takes to support you? Create a simple assessment for them to complete during the application process.
It doesn't have to be complicated, but it SHOULD have questions that go a little deeper than something they can just Google.
For example: If you're hiring a bookkeeper to help with some of your client work, use a fake set of books (the Craig's Landscaping sample company account inside of QBO works great for this) and make a few changes to the Balance Sheet. Tell the candidate to identify each of the 5 mistakes you've planted in the books and how they'd fix them.
It's that easy! You don't have to create a full exam to test them on every skill under the sun.
Another great place to find questions for your assessment is Facebook groups for bookkeepers. Hop into the groups and scan to see what questions newer bookkeepers are asking! Use those questions and ask them to explain how they got to their answer.
Keep in mind that it's OKAY if they don't get every answer perfect. Sometimes it's just as helpful to see that their thought process is on the right track, even if they're not all the way there yet.
I can tell you from experience that it's SO worth the extra time it takes to see if someone's aligned with the skillset you're looking for in a team member.
Mistake #3: Setting Your Team Member Loose Without Training
I know we just talked about testing your candidates for skills before choosing one to hire, but it's also super important to layer in some kind of training specific to your business. You don't want to just set them free without setting any kind of expectation on HOW the job should be done. Give them deadlines, time frames, SOPs, and anything else that helps them avoid mistakes.
It's another one of those things where, yes, it'll take some time out of your day/week to make sure they have all the information and resources they need, but your whole firm will benefit from it in the long run!
Choosing the Best Fit When You're Filtering Candidates
Sometimes, it's a matter of listening to your gut. But that's only AFTER going through the process of vetting your candidates and narrowing it down till you have a few left.
It's not enough to just onboard the first person who shows an interest in working for you. I've been there, done that, and learned my lesson.
Ask your trusted colleagues for referrals, write a killer job description, and have a company culture in place to see who aligns before you make a decision. I've even reached out to other firm owners to help me evaluate candidates and get a second opinion before making a choice!
If you need help creating a strong assessment, writing an attention-grabbing job description, and everything else that comes with the hiring process...
Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants was designed for bookkeeping business owners like you!
We cover everything about cultivating an aligned team, shifting to the right mindset, optimizing your offers, creating those rock-solid systems, and positioning yourself to be a removable CEO. It's the group coaching program I WISH I had when I was building my very first firm to six-figure income, and we'd love to see you join!
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