Amtec Hiring Guides

How to Hire Accounting Managers in Portland

Amtec Hiring Guides

How to Hire Accounting Managers in Portland

Current Environment

As companies grow and revenues increase, so too will the number of accountants needed to keep up with the financial management of the organization. As the number of accountants increases, the need for a manager to oversee them as employees and oversee their work is needed. their work. The staff will need leadership to ensure they’re all working toward the same goal, mission, and vision. Successful accounting manager recruitment is a keystone to a prosperous team.

Accounting managers don’t just supervise accountants; they create systems and processes for analyzing and reporting financial information, ensure organizations follow legal and regulatory requirements and recommend improvements for business procedures. Depending on the type of business, accounting managers may also prepare annual budgets, track financial data, and make recommendations on financial decisions.

History

The history of the field of finance and the recording and management of financial activities dates back to the dawn of civilization. While fiance has roots in scientific fields, such as statistics, economics, and mathematics, it also includes non-scientific elements that liken it to art.

As the complexity of financial instruments, transactions, stock markets, reporting requirements, and regulation has increased, the need for specialized roles in finance and accounting has grown.

Will COVID-19 Affect the accounting Field?

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected employment and the job market, however, the role of the Accounting Manager has, like many other finance and accounting-related positions, become increasingly important due to the complex and intricate nature of budgets – big and small – in a post-COVID world.

2021 has seen a mix of responses as economies start to open up once again now that the distribution of the vaccine has increased. There is much to be hopeful for. Accounting managers will be even more important for companies as they work toward economic recovery and prepare for the future.

How will Recruiting accounting managers Help Your Company?

How will Hiring accounting managers Help Your Company?

As your company grows and your financial matrices become more complex, it will be helpful to hire an accounting manager in order to place a bit of a buffer between the CFO, the controller, and the staff accountants. This will allow for a smoother flow of communication and will ensure that all accountants are getting the same information and are all on the same page.

An accounting manager will help in a number of other ways besides supervision and communication. They will also provide another set of eyes on financial statements and provide needed quality control as they review documents and pay attention to even the smallest details.

They will also be responsible for taking large data sets from staff accountants and condensing them into smaller, more manageable soundbites and presentations when it comes to budget and accounting reporting hierarchies.

accounting manager Details

Responsibilities

Accounting managers act as leaders within their organization, ensuring their accounting staff meets goals. In addition to communicating with their team, accounting managers interact with executives in their organization to discuss priorities and report on their responsibilities.

They update financial documents, design plans for their department, and work with direct reports and supervisors; all of these responsibilities require strong organizational skills.

Accounting managers also do the following things:

  • Collaborate with other department managers to support overall organizational goals and objectives
  • Advise staff on the handling of non-routine transactions
  • Respond to inquiries from financial executives and other firm-wide leaders regarding financial results and special requests
  • Handle personnel conflicts and performance issues among accounting staff
  • Discuss budget issues with managers in other departments
  • Work with other departments to communicate accounting policies and procedures and enforce them
  • Present financial results to upper management

Looking for another position? View other positions we place in Portland, Oregon.

Education

Some accounting positions require a Bachelor’s degree, however that is not true across the board. While candidates can complete a degree in Business Administration, Public Administration, Finance, or Accounting, a wide variety of degrees may qualify someone for the role, depending on their previous experience.

Top Schools – US News & World Report rankings.

Top Schools

  • University of Texas at Austin

  • BYU-Provo

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Salary Range

accounting managers in the U.S.

$68k
Low
$147k
Average
$208k
High
108100k

Total accounting managers Employed in the U.S.

46.5%

Men

53.5%

Women

accounting manager Salary Comparison

National

Experience plays a significant role in the overall compensation potential for accounting managers. Obviously, the more experience you have, the more you can and likely will be paid. That said, those candidates who are highly qualified can expect to be included in high-level decision-making processes and, therefore, can expect to be well compensated for their work.

For more detailed compensation information for accounting managers in [city-name], download our free compensation/salary report below.

Oregon

The average annual salary for accounting managers in Oregon was 122k in 2019. The hourly wage averaged $58.84.

For more detailed compensation information for accounting managers in Portland, download our free compensation/salary report below.

Working in Portland

Do accounting managers find the city of Portland a good place to live and work? There seems to be a large community of people who adore Portland and would never want to live anywhere else. On the other side of that coin, there are things about living in the city that are not rated highly.

The city is a very beautiful place and offers a unique opportunity for outdoor recreation with the ocean one hour west and the mountains one hour east. The city also celebrates open spaces, gardens, and green living.  On the jobs front, Portland has emerged as a tech haven, thus the moniker “Silicon Forest”.

Here are a few other pros for Portland.

Pros

    • Outdoor recreation. In Portland, it’s not event-based. It’s a lifestyle. And the city easily accommodates adventure and exploration with easy access to urban forests, trails, and bike paths.
    • Natural beauty: With Mount Hood towering in the distance, sprawling urban forests, the sparkling Willamette River flowing through the middle of town, and 275 public parks and gardens, it’s a truly beautiful city.
    • Diversity. Portland is also a place of strong character, and the city attracts and welcomes people of the same ilk. After all, an unofficial tagline for the city is “Keep Portland Weird”.
    • Transportation. This Quora exchange explains how one Portlander enjoys the option of walking, biking, taking light rail, bus or streetcar. The options are numerous because the downtown is built densely in small blocks.
    • Jobs. As Oregon’s largest city, almost four times larger than the next largest city, Portland offers the greatest number of job opportunities. Recruitment agency and staffing company services are also available from Amtec for Portland.
    • No sales tax. YAY!

On the other hand, there are a few complaints about living and working in the city.

Cons

    • The weather. For those with Seasonal Affective Disorder, the climate can be a challenge. The city sees an average of 144 days of sunshine, and the other days are cloudy or rainy. and’s climate would not be good.
    • High housing costs. Home purchase costs and rents were rising prior to the pandemic, and that has accelerated due to the low inventory of available homes.
    • Traffic. Although public transportation gets a thumbs up, more people are starting to talk about traffic as an issue in the city.

Current Weather

Not your city? View other cities where we place accounting managers.

Demand for accounting managers in Portland

Demand for accounting managers in Portland

Positions in accounting will see an unusually high growth trajectory in the next 10 years. This is testimony to just how important this position is when it comes to an organization’s overall success. Positions in accounting and finance at all levels have a strong demand across many industries and types of organizations, including the public sector.

According to the BLS, the job outlook for directors of finance is projected to grow 15% from 2019-2029, much faster than the 4% average growth predicted for all jobs. However, this growth is expected to vary by industry.

Financial managers and accountants in the investment industry, cash management, and risk management are expected to stay in high demand.

The supply of candidates and demand for open positions have a direct correlation to a company's ability to hire. Download a free Supply and Demand report for accounting managers in Portland, Oregon below.

How to Hire the Best accounting managers

Finding and hiring the best accounting manager candidates can save you money right away and well into the future.

The costs of making a bad hire are well documented. The cost can run as much as 30% of the employee's first-year earnings according to the US Department of Labor. Bad hires can cost a whopping $240,000 in expenses related to hiring, compensation, and retention per The Undercover Recruiter. 74% of companies who admit they've hired the wrong person for a position lost an average of $14,900 for each bad hire according to CareerBuilder. These statistics support our long-held position that behavioral questions are the best way to get to know your candidates and past behavior is the best indicator of future performance.

Recruiting Best Practices

The information below comes from the best practices Amtec uses for finding the highest quality candidates.

Defining the Position

When defining the role you are creating, we recommend a position profile to fully evaluate the position you are hiring for. You must decide if the engineer can work remotely or must work in Oregon. If working in Portland is essential, make sure you include that in your job posting so candidates can decide how many miles they can commute.

How to Source the Best Candidates

When you are looking to source the best quality candidates for your open positions, make sure you have done the legwork to hire an "A Player". You can do this by making sure your company's perspective is aligned with the current market, you have taken into account the job responsibilities, as well as what type of characteristics you are looking for to fit your company culture. Then proceed to write a job posting to attract high-quality candidates.

Characteristics of accounting managers

Finding candidates who are great with numbers, knowledgeable of the latest accounting principles, proficient in the use of a variety of software programs and tools is important for your success. But besides these things, look for candidates who have experience, abilities, or character traits such as:

  • Strong organizational skills
  • The ability to analyze financial data, draw conclusions about past performance
  • Experience developing financial reports, for example, profit and loss statements
  • Managerial skills and experience as managing an accounting staff will be a large part of the job

How to Screen Candidates

You wrote a job posting, posted the position online, and received a lot more resumes than you’d bargained for! Next comes the enormous task of sorting through those resumes to eliminate the ones that are clearly not a good fit. Now, you have a stack of resumes for candidates who have potential. So how do you go about screening the remaining candidates?

It starts on the phone! As a recruiter, the goal of your telephone screening is to learn more about your candidates. You can confirm that they have the educational qualifications and relevant experience, but you also need to determine if they would fit into your company's culture. To make this job easier, use a system to consistently evaluate results. This way you can equally and objectively compare candidates and evaluate their "soft skills", like communication and thinking process. Download Amtec's Professional Assessment Questionnaire below to help with screening candidates.

Free Professional Assessment Questionnaire

An individually customized questionnaire that helps assess a candidate's competence with written communication skills, thinking processes, and other relevant skills.

How to Interview Candidates

At Amtec, we believe in the power of behavoral interview questions to go beyond the experience and skills listed on the candidate's resume. Although you will want to confirm in the interview that the candidate does indeed have the experience listed on their resume, your assessment needs to go much deeper than that. An interview using behavioral questions can help you determine how well the candidate will fit with your company culture.

Download Amtec's best practices on conducting super effective interviews to find the best candidates and fill your open jobs.

Behavioral Interview Guide

Get the info you need to hire the best accounting managers

Free Interview Guide