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Choosing the right accountant saves your organization valuable time and money and provides crucial support for growth and business success. However, a bad hire results in wasted time and often leads to other irreparable losses in terms of revenue, reduced team morale and negative project outcomes.

 

What’s more, in addition to accounting certifications, technical skills and experience, accountants must possess certain desirable personality traits to help you achieve business goals. For example, a successful accountant is not only good at crunching numbers, efficient and organized, they are also good at people skills, coordination and communication.

 

Here’s a closer look at some crucial personality traits to help you identify strong candidates for the job role.

 

Key Personality Traits of Successful Accountants

 

  1. Extremely Organized – Accountants typically handle a large amount of work – paperwork as well as cloud applications – on a daily basis. Look out for a candidate who can complete a variety of tasks with solid, proven organizational skills.
  2. Detail Oriented – Accountants need a high degree of precision that demands close attention to detail to avoid costly mistakes.
  3. Effective Communicators – Accountants must be able to summarize complex concepts into simple, easy-to-understand language for other team members or departments.
  4. Creative Problem Solvers – The ideal candidate should possess an interest in presenting creative, out-of-the-box solutions to problems while researching innovative techniques at the same time.
  5. Customer Service-Oriented – Successful accountants have a strong inclination towards client service so they can present information specific to the client’s industry and requirements.
  6. Excellent at Time Management – Accountants often have to juggle deadlines, tax work, customer phone calls, correspondence and meetings on a daily basis.

 

Hiring the Right Accounting Candidate Provides Diverse Benefits

 

While most accountants boast a high degree of precision, organizational skills and practical knowledge, they also need certain soft skills to stand out from the pack. In addition to providing technical support, accountants should not only be able to preserve confidentiality and maintain security, but also be able to work under tight deadlines at the same time.

 

In addition, they should be able to embrace challenges, respond to changes in their working environment while displaying a high degree of agility. Niche recruiters can help you find the right accounting candidates for open job positions in your organization.

 

Sage Staffing can help you successfully address staffing challenges in admin, payroll and accounting. Contact us today for the right accounting candidates who can add value to your team.

5 Responses to “What Personality Traits Should You Look for in Your Accounting Candidates?”

  1. Millie Hue

    I like that you pointed out that the accountant must be able to help us understand the processes in lay man’s term. Personally, I would want that as well since I have a lot of questions regarding tax computation and getting the most profit. I would definitely hire one once I have started my own business someday which I have been saving up for since I started working last year.

    Reply
  2. Stefan Bradley

    It’s good to know that you should look for an accountant who is skilled when it comes to communicating so that they can simply concepts that may be too difficult to understand normally. My uncle was hoping to find some help with financing his business and wanted to know what to look for in an accountant. I will be sure to let him know that he needs to find one that will be able to communicate with him effectively.

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  3. Randy Chorvack

    I agree that you should hire someone with solid and proven organizational skills. Especially with all the paperwork and other such things they have to take care of. I’ll keep that in mind when hiring an accountant for me.

    Reply
  4. Ashley

    I liked that you said that one thing to consider when you are looking to hire a professional accountant is to find someone who will complete a variety of tasks with solid, proven organizational skills. I have been thinking about starting my own business and would need an accountant but I have been worried that I wouldn’t find someone who would be able to complete the tasks using organization and efficiency. I will be sure to hold interviews to find someone who will be very professional and will complete their work quickly and efficiently.

    Reply
  5. Lucas Hamon

    Totally agree! I placed many accountants before I left the staffing industry, and found that hiring managers would often get caught up in individuals who had bubbly, outgoing personalities, but didn’t necessarily know how to exhibit strong organizational or problem solving skills.

    Great article, Matt!

    Reply

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