Tag: Recruiting

Deloitte Polishes Its Online Recruiting Presence but Who’s Listening?

A few weeks back I talked about the flashy websites the Big 4 have invested in for recruitment purposes. For those of you DT’ers still wondering where your raises went, the answer is now clear.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a brand new (interactive!) recruitment website. DT is completely revamping their online presence.

Seemingly launched the same week as PricewaterhouseCoopers’ personal branding campaign, DT’s overhaul is much more comprehensive. The Twitter page already boasts 1,500 followers; its unique twist is that employees take turns tweeting about their daily work. Interesting approach, only if you remember to log in to the Twitter page and read the biography of the weekly tweeter.


Deloitte’s YouTube approach is similar to that of KPMG’s established page; clean and consistent website hosting professional videos. One of the videos, entitled “What if your work mattered to the world,” delves, umm, deeply into the importance of cow manure on the job. Taking the term “shitty job” quite literally, I suppose.

Finally, everything is nicely tied together with a flashy site showcasing – shockingly – its youngest and brightest employees. Stories, videos, and links to various DT pages make working for the dot seem downright enjoyable and fun.

The question remains, though – who is this targeting?

From my brief experience on the sites, there’s still no direct way to contact the recruiter responsible for a particular school (PwC boasts the only clear option). There’s no way to ask questions, request feedback, contact the recruiter who’s business card just went through the wash.

This maneuver of hiding behind a flashy website is a running theme for corporate recruiting websites. Why? Why not? The employers hold the cards. The recruiters mailboxes are already overflowing. And if you’re a top student on campus, trust me, the recruiters will find you. So why the website?

See the Joneses out there in front? Yup, better go catch them.

We’re still at a point in the social media world where no one really knows what works best. Facebook has been all the rage for teenagers and young adults, but now that older generations are joining in swarms (i.e. creepy overprotective parents) , there has been a shift of concern among younger users. Twitter is a cluster of a mystery, but the it’s a cluster that everyone (including me) is going along with.

The Big 4 marketing gurus are no different. They know that the recruiters will do the legwork to find the best candidates. They know students will talk to their professors for advice, and listen to their older friends who interned elsewhere.

Perhaps in the end the websites, tweets and cow videos are for the helicopter parents. Seriously. Recruit the parent, recruit the student.

Busy Season Interns: Don’t Waste Their Time

Continuing with the busy season theme, let’s touch on everyone’s favorite coffee jockeys, the interns. This isn’t prime season for interns at accounting firms but we know there are a few lucky (?) teams out there that have an extra set of hands on deck.

Getting serious for two, this time of year, everyone is under pressure to get things done and if you happen to have an intern on your team, they either make your job infinitely easier or they are the bane of your existence. If you fall into the latter category, why is this the case?

It’s pretty easy for you to conclude that the blade of grass tapping you on the shoulder every ten minutes is the person at fault but a lot of times, interns get thrown into bad situations where they end up working for seniors or managers that are so swamped (or helpless) that they can only think about their own workload while there’s a 21 year old that needs something to do (besides looking through menus and making copies).


Since accounting firms put so much effort into recruiting the next wave you’d think that this enthusiasm would spread to teams like the Plague. Unfortch, there are many that see interns as an annoyance during this time of year because, “I have so much work to do and I don’t have time to handhold interns” and we think that’s bullshit.

We’re not saying that there aren’t bad interns out there. And we’re not saying you’re not busy. We know better. But if you gave that intern something meaningful to do instead of whining about how busy you are, they might make your life a speck (or a few) easier.

And interns need hand holding because they’re interns. Don’t forget that up until this point, they’ve been wearing sweats 24/7 and that you used to be just like them. Experienced team members should take this time to utilize them in a meaningful way and not as gofers. If you’re one of those teams that needs a gofer, at least squeeze some meaningful work somewhere so they can learn something and they probably won’t mind the gofering as much.

Yeah, it might take some effort on your part but it’s definitely worth your time to mentor these future associates. If you give them some challenging work now and show them a little bit of appreciation for their efforts, they’ll run through walls for you later.

Signed, Your Friendly Human Resources Professional

HR.jpgEditor’s note: Welcome to the debut post from Daniel Braddock, your friendly Human Resources Professional. He could very well be considered a hypothetical love child of Suze Orman and Toby Flenderson. Following his varsity jacket wearing college days, he entered the consumer markets as an auditor for a Big 4 firm in New York City. He spent three brisk years as an auditor before taking the reins of stirring the HR kool-aid. He currently resides in Manhattan. Daily routines include coffee breakfasts and scotch dinners. You can follow him on Twitter @DWBraddock.
Greetings,
Please let me take a moment to introduce myself.
My name is Daniel W. Braddock, and I was a resourceful human. I was not chargeable. I was not overworked. I stroll in at 9:00am, take a long lunch, and skip out before 6:00pm. You consider me a waste; overhead expense; non-vital to the process. You have me to thank for Summer Friday’s, the crackdown on mentor-ship lunches, and for that blasted Bear Hunt. My degree can be in liberal arts, accounting, or psychology. I was from the world of H.R., or Human Resources Rubbish, as you refer to me.
You generally loathe my kind.


My name is Daniel W. Braddock, and I was on your side once. Stressed, over-utilized and under-charged. I know work/life balance initiatives are as good as the fluffy magazine rankings they earn. I saw first-hand how leadership continously drops the ball on estimates, budgets, and correspondences. I was invited to lush recruiting events, asked to slap on the charm and pretend the ship wasn’t sinking. I’ve been in the trenches, didn’t like what I saw, and left.
My name is Daniel W. Braddock, and I am adaptive. I spent years in the audit practice of a Big Four firm before transitioning my career to the the H.R. side of the house. I have traveled through the looking glass and back. Contributing to GC will shed new light on many topics, including:
• Outsourcing, both foreign and domestic
• Hiring forecasts
• The world of recruiting
• Hiring cycles and leadership’s faults
• Work/life balance initiatives and the real “initiative” behind them
• Firm rankings in the media
• The next step – life after the Big 4
I’m looking forward to our future discussions, beginning with a new topic on Thursday. As always, please send suggestions and ideas for topics to tips@goingconcern.com.
Regards,
Daniel W. Braddock
H.R.

GC Weekend: How Did You Choose Your Firm?

Thumbnail image for BelushiCollege.jpgRecruitment is still going on in many parts of the country and soon little grasshopper accountants will have to make a decision on where their career will start. Their decisions will be based on many factors, including but not exclusive to:
• The obvious
• Benefits
• The people they meet
• Perceived prestige of the firm (or lack thereof)
• Work/life balance
Web CPA has a piece from last week written by an HR service professional that makes the point the better benefits will yield better employees for a firm.


Okay, maybe. As important as benefits packages are, most firms offer competitive packages that won’t serve as a deal-breaker. That still doesn’t stop some partners from boasting about standard options that most companies already have, however.
While we’re not crazy about the idea that benefits serve as the major selling point for employers, it does bring up the interesting question of how you were originally sold on your current (or former) firm?
Regardless of how you feel about your employer now, you were probably excited to start working for said company at some point. If you’ve hated your employer since day one then you seriously need to consider talking to someone. No one put a gun to your head to take the job so what was it that convinced you?
Maybe it was the firm with the coolest schwag? Maybe you were getting the extra-special hustle from a partner. Or maybe you just took what you could get.
Whatever your reasons for jumping on board, discuss them in the comments in order to give the recruits out there some guidance with some non-firm responses. Recruits if you’ve already made a choice, discuss who and why. For the rest of you, if you knew then what you know now, would you make the same choice? Some recruits are still getting the pitch now so let’s give them the straight shit. They’re going to be working for you, after all.

Problem of the Day: Your Staff Makes the Same Money As You (Maybe More)

money.jpgApparently it’s happening, people. With several firms freezing pay for this fiscal year, some already hinting at an additional freeze for fiscal year 2010, and with less fewer offers being made on campus, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the new associate nearly has the same salary as you.
It goes without saying that this is a contentious issue amongst the staff and it can be made worse if it is known to exist between members of the same team.
If you’ve been busting your ass for the last two to three years and seen very little appreciation in the form of merit increases and suddenly the new associate walks in making virtually the same as you, your motivation may evaporate on all fronts.
From a staff perspective, no new associate, no matter how virtuous will ever ask, “Is that what a senior associate makes? I wouldn’t be comfortable making that much without any experience.” Nice thought but not gonna happen. Firms will claim that they have to keep salaries competitive in order to win the best talent and may even encourage it in order to foster the “competitive environment”.
So discuss how prevalent this is on your team, in your office, or at your firm. Is there any good solution here? We’re talking about money, so there has to be some opinions.

Tax Grads in Colorado Can Get Over PwC Now

pwclogo.thumbnail.jpgLess than thrilling news out of the Denver office of PwC as a source has filled us in the firm’s plans for tax graduate students:
“PwC told tax graduate students at the University of Denver that they werent [sic] hiring again until September 2011.”
We touched on this last month, as campus recruiters have found that their intern pipelines will end up filling their full-time budgets for the following year. We can only assume that students specializing in tax at the other schools that P. Dubs-Denver visits are being told the same thing. If you’ve got news on firms’ hiring expectations at your school, discuss or drop us a line at tips@goingconcern.com.

Recruiting Season Kicks Off

BelushiCollege.jpgClasses started for a lot of colleges in the past week and it sounds like some firms are already out there spreading their propoganda good word. At least according to one account, the early events have been well attended which fits with the notion that enrollment has remained high.
So if you’re a student, let us know what your early recruiting events have been like and if you’re a recruiter for a firm or a professional working these glad-handing fests, let us know your early impressions about next year’s newbies and interns.