With Practice Accountants increasingly hard to find, Bryony Gibson, director of Bryony Gibson Consulting, explores whether it's time to rethink your recruitment strategy and hire for potential as well as perfection.
Accountancy firms are facing a recruitment challenge. With experienced and qualified candidates in short supply, the competition for top talent is intense. And it seems that relying solely on traditional criteria – ACA or ACCA qualification, years of post-qualified experience, and a polished CV – is no longer enough. Perhaps the answer lies in a rethink of your approach. Could it be time to consider hiring for attitude, then investing in training for skills?
The Limits of Traditional Hiring
For years, firms have filtered candidates with strict boundaries on what they deem acceptable qualifications and experience. While guaranteeing technical knowledge, in a challenging market, you risk closing the door to capable people who may not tick every box but have the drive and aptitude to succeed. With experienced candidates scarce, clinging to rigid criteria can stunt growth and leave firms under-resourced.
Identifying Future Talent
Hiring for potential doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means recognising qualities that suggest someone can grow into a high-performing professional. Curiosity, resilience, emotional intelligence, commercial awareness, and a willingness to learn often matter more than the years of experience someone has on their CV. In fact, many of the best accountants I work with have began their careers part-qualified, but they excelled because they had the right mindset and support.
Assessing Potential
How do you identify the right traits and spot a rising star? Scenario-based questions, problem-solving exercises, and values-led discussions are great ways to reveal adaptability and gather insight into someone’s mindset. Asking candidates how they’ve overcome challenges, learned new skills, or navigated change will give you a powerful understanding of their growth potential.
Invest in Training
Hiring for attitude only works if it’s backed by a genuine commitment to offer training and mentoring support. Structured programmes, shadowing, and regular feedback will help candidates to develop the technical skills they need, while embedding them in the firm’s culture. But this is not so much about rules and compliance; rather, it is about coaching to develop the right skills, better judgment, client interaction, and commercial acumen.
Practical Steps
Some easy steps you can take to prepare for a new approach include:
Revise job specs to prioritise traits and potential, not just experience.
Update interview plans to include scenarios, case studies, and values-driven questions.
Strengthen your onboarding programme, assigning mentors, providing clear progression paths, and building in regular feedback sessions for your team.
Engage the wider organisation with the concept so you can create a culture where staff support new hires and value the longterm benefits of developing people.
Chasing the “perfect CV” might have worked when talent was plentiful, but in today’s market, it risks long-term frustration. By broadening your criteria, you can attract a wider pool of candidates, nurture future leaders, and build loyalty. In a market where salaries are rising and experienced hires are scarce, hiring for attitude and training for skill isn’t just an alternative; it’s a strategic advantage.
Accountancy will always be a technical profession, and technical skills can be taught. But attitude, potential, and mindset are innate. Across the North East, firms are already proving this in practice, with candidates who may not be traditionally “perfect” thriving once given the right support. These hires not only deliver results but also bring fresh perspectives, creativity, and long-term loyalty.
The firms that succeed in today’s recruitment market will be those willing to rethink how they hire, invest in people, and grow talent from within.