As a highly experienced tax recruiter with over thirty-three years in the tax executive search profession, I have information to share if you want to know how to attract leaders in the tax profession. As many tax leadership roles unfold due to baby boomer retirements, multinational corporations are increasingly losing access to the most technically sophisticated tax executives throughout the market. There is an elite pool of underground tax executive talent only accessible through a channel of trusted connectors. While people are distracted by the advances of AI, few people realize the negative impact AI is having on the ability to attract the hidden pool of talented tax professionals. This post addresses important factors affecting a search for a corporate tax executive today.
Understand my views are based upon thirty-three years’ experience communicating with highly educated leaders in the tax profession nationally and internationally. When you spend your professional life communicating with tax executives with multinational corporations for decades, you learn how identify and reach the very best of the tax profession. They are now increasingly hidden and underground due to the need for greater privacy. I have been fortunate to meet the most technically sophisticated tax executives around the world who are saving corporations millions, and in some cases billions, in tax dollars. There are CFOs who retain me to help build their tax team as a profit center; and there are CFOs who view their tax organization as a cost center. You learn there is a big difference in how a CFO treats their tax organization. You learn the most technically sophisticated tax executives want to report to the CFO; you learn tax executives want to report directly to the CFO. Companies who have the head of tax reporting to anyone other than the CFO will never be able to access the top tax executive talent. You learn when companies reorganize management and remove the tax executive from reporting to the CFO, they lose access to talented tax executives. There is higher turnover in a lead tax executive role when it does not report directly to the CFO. Most lead tax executives approached by recruiters on a search for Head of Tax will not even consider interviewing with the company if the role is not reporting to the CFO. This prevents extraordinary talent from even considering the lead tax executive role.
When you have a corporate CFO and lead tax executive working together as business partners, you have a corporation that increases income and value of the organization. Happy investors reap the benefits of a management team of a CFO and Head of Tax working together. These extraordinary teams are built. These top management teams do not happen by someone randomly walking in through a corporate resume portal. They do not randomly happen by a contractor recruiter with no deep network in the tax community. Success happens when you retain an expert tax recruiter to actively pursue top tax talent for your organization. CFOs who retain an expert in tax recruitment will reap the reward working with an expert with a strong and proven tax executive network.
Proven and experienced tax recruiters communicate with technically sophisticated tax executives who understand how to legally use our tax laws to claw back millions and often billions in what would otherwise be corporate income lost forever to tax revenue authorities. Lead tax executives in multinational corporations are fending off tax revenue authorities at state and local, federal and international levels daily. Highly intelligent, technically sophisticated tax executives offer profit-making benefits to the companies who hire them.
Three Reasons Corporations Struggle To Hire A Tax Executive
There are three primary hiring challenges we have identified with companies seeking to hire the best of the tax profession. We will cover the reasons in this article and offer a solution. The top experts in the tax profession bring sophisticated technical expertise on tax rules and legislation across multiple international, federal, state and local tax jurisdictions. This requires years of training in tax laws, rules and regulations. These tax executives do not run numbers through tax software. They are highly trained, technically skilled, and offer valuable, sound business judgement skills. This is something you never want to trust to AI. Technically sophisticated tax executives engage with tax revenue authorities questioning every business move your corporation makes which require strong business, technical and interpersonal skills. In my opinion, AI will never cut it because it can be set up to ensure the corporation will be unable to reclaim revenue that legally belongs to them. Hiring a tax executive with sophisticated tax expertise and sound business judgement is a huge advantage for any corporation lucky enough to attract the top performers in the tax profession.
Why do many tax executives not come forward for tax jobs? What we know from speaking with these tax executives is it is often a concern about lack of privacy that prevents tax executives from coming forward to interview for a tax job. Tax executives will not send their resume into a resume portal due to lack of privacy, lack of knowledge of the tax community, and the low compensation being offered online. We will address each of these issues in this article.
Lack Of Professional Privacy
When you have titan websites collecting all your personal and professional information and selling it back to the highest bidder, we have a huge privacy problem. When employers can buy from these online titan sites their employees’ activity and engagement on their sites, tax executives have become much more cautious about their online privacy. Many professionals are unaware that their activity online is now for sale. What I am telling you is that is you are engaging and active on these sites for free, they are paying for their business costs by selling your activity. Your data and activity online is what titan companies are selling to buyers of information. Personally, I can only imagine if a company decides to do a major layoff that they may make decisions based upon your activity online. Look at some of the services offered: https://www.linkedin.com/products/categories/employee-engagement-software Decide for yourself is you feel comfortable knowing your activity is tracked and sold. You must be more protective of yourself than ever before.
Over the past year, we have had tax executives reach out to us for private representation to companies. We now have a program that ensures tax executives are privately introduced to opportunities to lead corporation tax departments. Many technically sophisticated tax executives are not actively responding to ads online. So, they come to us for private representation to these multinational corporations.
Tax executives are a corporation’s tax quarterback, and they prefer to have experienced tax recruiters represent them privately. Many talented corporate tax executives align themselves with proven performers in the tax executive search profession to make certain private introductions happen. They are talented tax executives that never submit their information through a job board posting or company resume portal. These high performing tax executives have gone underground to protect their privacy, and they are smart to do so.
Tax Executives Are Working With Recruiters Who Understand Tax Expertise
Tax executives are highly educated professionals, and they expect to work with experts across an organization, internally and externally. Access to and engagement with top tax professionals does not happen easily unless you are working with a competent and experienced tax recruiter. You must be actively engaged in the tax professional community, or you are unlikely to be aware of the companies who have open tax jobs for a year and more. This happens because the company simply lacks the recruiting expertise to get the tax job filled. These are companies that do not seek the advantages they would have in hiring an expert in tax recruitment. There are companies hoping that the HR recruiter has tax expertise and the time to make hundreds of phone calls to potential tax candidates about the tax role, but they do not have the capabilities or resources. The result is the company spends months ill-prepared to conduct an effective tax search and fails to hire the very best tax executive they could have to lead their tax organization.
You must retain a professional agent (much like a sports agent finds great players for winning sports teams), to attract the top tax talent. It requires a herculean effort to bring great tax leaders to run any tax organization. It is a talented tax leadership working with a talented CFO who is involved in building a corporate tax organization into a profit center that makes a huge impact on the positive bottom line. Tax executives must be assured of privacy first, before these tax executives will come forward and submit their resumes to any company. There are sites that sell tax professionals activity and engagement online to employers. Yet most professionals are oblivious to this fact that employers can now buy their activity and engagement online. Tax executives ultimately discover their identity, and their online engagement has been sold out to their employers and are shocked when they find out this happens. More than ever, tax professionals are discovering these activities by other sites claiming to help them while their private and professional data is being sold out for profit. The best way for companies to access hidden tax executive talent is by introductions from expert tax recruiters, the tax recruiters who the tax professional’s trust. Bottom line, companies will be introduced to highly talented, technically sophisticated tax executives only through an expert tax recruiter with great tax connections.
Posting Salaries Less Than What They Are Being Paid Is Keeping Executives Away
What has been a most concerning trend is being noticed and spoken about behind the scenes by tax executives about tax executive compensation. Many tax executives are sharing with us privately their concern about the salaries being posted on tax jobs and compensation. The salaries posted are so low they would not consider moving to another company for the salary range posted. The compensation posted on tax jobs due to state compensation transparency laws are keeping tax executive candidates away.
There is a huge discrepancy between what high performing tax executives are making and what companies are displaying on job site ads. Speaking with HR professionals they are telling me they are experiencing this in their profession as well. This fact alone is driving high-performing tax executives further underground and inaccessible to companies searching for them. They are privately telling us they would not even consider the tax job being presented in an online tax job posting.
Here is what is happening in my opinion: AI is gathering data on tax executive compensation on job boards and the low salary ranges are being collated by the AI LLM( large language models) resulting in suppression of tax executive compensation. We tested our theory the 4th Quarter of 2024 by interviewing hundreds of tax executives on their salaries. What we found in our research and subsequent report was a great discrepancy in what is posted as compensated paid tax executives in tax job ads and what tax executives are really being compensated. This is creating salary compression, which is an act of keeping something from happening or being known. Suppression is restricting something from being public knowledge. My theory is AI is collating salary information from job boards thereby suppressing what tax executives are currently being paid. However, tax executives know the truth about tax compensation paid and they are talking about this fact privately. The result is that these high performers are not coming forward to interview with these lead tax executive roles for the salaries being promoted. The salaries being posted are turning the most technically talented executives away from many senior level tax jobs.
What Is The Solution To Finding A Highly Qualified Tax Executive
From my experience, there are multinational corporations who have spent months and some more than one year searching for their lead tax executive. They are in a tough spot to attract the talent they desire because many tax executives are now cautious about the company since the tax job has been open too long. What should they do now? The best solution is to remove the tax job description from the job boards and retain an expert tax recruiter to get the tax executive search done correctly. The retained tax recruiter should speak directly with the CFO and understand their needs in the tax role; the retained tax recruiter then needs to thoroughly research the market and speak to and interview all tax executives in the surrounding area to determine the level of interest in the tax executive job being offered; all interested tax executive candidates are equally considered in order to surface the best for the corporate open tax executive role.
The process of identifying the most technically talented and interested takes time and respectful effort. This process ensures greater privacy for tax candidates and demonstrates respect for all candidates being equally considered for an open tax role. In addition, our retained tax executive search firm gathers accurate compensation data so you can make a more informed decision on tax executive compensation. Many companies go through a lengthy interview process only to lose a great tax executive candidates at the offer stage. An experienced tax recruiter has the knowledge and skills required to get the deal closed with the corporate client and the tax executive candidate being offered the tax role. The tax recruiter has developed a trusted relationship with the tax executive being considered. As such, they are most likely to be able to effectively handle the delicate salary negotiation process.
If you have a current need or anticipate a future need for a lead tax executive for your organization, please contact ki***@******ch.com for a complimentary discussion. You can reach me at 858.232.4415 via text to arrange an introductory call.
