Amtec Hiring Guides

How to Hire Staff Accountants in Tacoma

Amtec Hiring Guides

How to Hire Staff Accountants in Tacoma

Current Environment

Accounting is a system of recording and summarizing business and financial transactions. For as long as civilizations have been engaging in trade or organized systems of government, methods of record-keeping, accounting, and accounting tools have been in use.

Hiring qualified people to manage the finances of a company is an incredibly important decision for any organization because they are so involved in the everyday aspects of all things financial. Especially as taxes become more complex and challenging, accountants can and will continue to play an important role in the overall lifecycle of a business.

History

The history of the field of accounting 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.

How will Recruiting staff accountants Help Your Company?

How will Hiring staff accountants Help Your Company?

Staff accountants can do more than just bookkeeping and accounts payable/receivable. staff accountants can actually help your company increase profits. Get your accountant involved in helping you grow your business profit early. While the company’s leadership likely knows quite a lot about the inner-workings of the business, staff accountants can contribute years of valuable experience in growing business profits for numerous other business owners they have helped already. 

Some of the ways that staff accountants can help to maximize company profits are as follows:

  • Analyze profits
  • Negotiate with suppliers
  • Reduce bad debts
  • Eliminate unprofitable products and services
  • Restructure financing
  • Maximize pricing
  • Review labor costs
  • Track advertising investments
  • Plan for profit
  • Identify valuable customers

Before we get to exactly how to hire the best accounting staff, let’s review some of the details…

staff accountant Details

Responsibilities

Staff accountants perform a wide range of duties related to financial records and taxation. Some staff accountants work under a CPA, helping them with organizing financial documents, staying compliant with government regulations and preparing tax returns for clients. Others work for companies, usually under a senior accountant, doing things like payroll, receivables and financial statements.

Here are some additional job duties:

  • Examine financial statements to ensure that they are accurate and comply with laws and regulations
  • Compute taxes owed, prepare tax returns, and ensure that taxes are paid properly and on time
  • Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency and use of accepted accounting procedures and identify potential risks for fraud
  • Organize, analyze, and maintain financial records
  • Assess financial operations, identify risks and challenges, and make best-practices recommendations to management
  • Suggest ways to reduce costs, enhance revenues, and improve profits

Looking for another position? View other positions we place in Tacoma, Washington.

Education

Most positions require a Bachelor’s degree, while some staff accountant positions require a CPA, and/or even an MBA and significant experience in the financial industry (5+ years) may be able to use their years of experience to replace the degree. 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. staff accountants don’t necessarily need to be CPAs, though many choose to pursue certification because it enhances their knowledge and marketability in the industry.

Top Schools – US News & World Report rankings

Top Schools

  • University of Texas at Austin

  • BYU-Provo

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Salary Range

staff accountants in the U.S.

$45k
Low
$79k
Average
$125k
High
1964k

Total staff accountants Employed in the U.S.

38.3%

Men

61.7%

Women

staff accountant Salary Comparison

National

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/accountants-and-auditors.htm

While staff accountants tend to be toward the bottom of the financial hierarchy, they are still incredibly important to the organization and are paid accordingly. There is a significant range for what staff accountants can make. The more experienced and educated the person, the better paid they will be.

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

Washington

The average annual salary for staff accountants in Washington was 82k in 2019. The hourly wage averaged $39.41.

For more detailed compensation information for staff accountants in Tacoma, download our free compensation/salary report below.

Working in Tacoma

Tacoma is a picturesque city in Washington on the banks of Puget Sound, located just north of its neighbor and “big sister” Seattle. But Tacoma is definitely a city with its own identity. Due to its thriving job market and progressive culture, Tacoma is also known as the City of Destiny.

Its natural beauty, ocean-front location, focus on arts and culture, and its proximity to the impressive Mount Ranier give Tacoma a ton of character.

Here are a few additional “pros” for living and working in Tacoma.

Pros

    • The crown jewel of Tacoma is Point Defiance Park, which some compare to  NYC’s Central Park as far as size and stuff to do.  The park has 760 acres of trails, gardens, forests, playgrounds, and waterfront activities like boating and swimming.
    • It’s also home to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium.
    • Museums: The city boasts several world-renowned museums: the Museum of Glass, the Tacoma Art Museum, and the Washington State History Museum.
    • Tacoma Arts Live features three theaters, the Tacoma City Ballet, Tacoma Philharmonic, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, and Puget Sound Revels.
    • Tacoma gets good reviews on its food scene, and most locals would point to Ruston Way for the best seafood restaurants, or cross the Tacoma Narrow’s Bridge to the charming city of Gig Harbor for more waterfront dining options.
    • The cost of living is lower than in neighboring Seattle. This calculator estimates that Tacoma is 34% cheaper overall than Seattle, and the median home cost is 56% less.

While there are many good things people report about living and working in Tacoma, there are a few complaints.

Cons

    • When comparing Tacoma to Seattle schools, the school data shows that Seattle has better statistics for Pre-K-12 schools. Tacoma has more students per teacher and a lower high school graduation rate, and while 28% of students go on to get a 4-year degree, 62% achieve the same in Seattle.
    • The Tacoma Aroma. What?? It’s a rancid, unpleasant odor that occurs occasionally in the tidal flats. Describe it as that kind of sulfuric, rotten egg smell. It’s a byproduct of industrialization in the area.

Current Weather

Not your city? View other cities where we place staff accountants.

Demand for staff accountants in Tacoma

Demand for staff accountants in Tacoma

Staff accountants are typically lumped in with other C-Suite executives, typically nested under the structure of the CFO. According to the BLS, there is a projection that there will be an average amount of growth (4%) in the finance field in the next 10 years. The role of the staff accountant will continue to be more complex and more technologically driven, thus all but guaranteeing that, as long as there is money involved with a company, there will be a growing need for staff accountants.

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 staff accountants in Tacoma, Washington below.

How to Hire the Best staff accountants

Finding and hiring the best staff accountant 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 Washington. If working in Tacoma 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 staff accountants

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

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 staff accountants

Free Interview Guide