BVOH 2019 Bay Area Accounting & Finance Professionals Salary Guide Preview: The Sectors Hottest Jobs

We recently published our 2019 Bay Area Accounting and Financial Professionals Salary Guide. Our comprehensive guide offers valuable insights to employers, as well as the talent they’re hoping to attract to their companies. Using the compensation data from our Bay Area placements in 2019, we’ve assembled salary ranges to reflect the market value accounting and finance professionals possess, broken down by experience level and job title.

Equipped with the latest salary data, employers can present competitive compensation packages to the talent they’re recruiting, and accounting and finance pros can recognize their full earning potential.

In addition to compensation figures, our guide also features an overview of the latest industry trends and a list of the most in-demand industry jobs. To give you a preview of what’s inside the salary guide, here are two of those ten in-demand roles.

Accounting Managers
With talent shortages rampant across the accounting and financial sectors, there are no easy roles to fill. But one of the more elusive hires employers have been struggling to recruit are accounting managers. Accounting managers are tasked with managing the general ledger, the accounting team, and the monthly close process. They typically require a mix of public accounting and hands-on operational accounting experience in private industry, as well as their CPA, for qualification. Why are they so hard to find?

There are a variety of factors, but one of the primary causes is succession planning—or, a lack of succession planning. With droves of Baby Boomers riding out into retirement, organizations have been forced to fast track their promotions, and where the squeeze is being felt the most is in the middle-management ranks.

To overcome this challenge, employers should consider over-hiring staff and senior accountants. If you need two, hire three. Every company nowadays is running a lean team, and the extra sets of hands will not go unutilized. This will increase the chances that one of the three will develop into an accounting manager candidate down the road.

Hiring a high performing audit senior or manager straight out of public accounting is another tactful way to mine for potential accounting managers. While companies are hesitant to do this because of the lack of operational experience, getting up to speed quickly in unfamiliar situations is exactly what auditors in public accounting do. With a little coaching, the right CPA could prove to be your most valuable and successful hire on the team.

Director of Corporate FP&A
On the other side of the house, the considerable growth in startups creates an issue for employers searching for Directors of Corporate FP&A. Once companies are scaling and starting to think about an IPO, this becomes a critical need. Why is it so challenging to find qualified, talented candidates?

Most employers require substantial corporate FP&A experience for this key hire. They want someone who’s seen the movie before and can bring 10+ years of expertise in implementing planning systems, developing and driving the annual planning process and robust forecasting discipline across all departments. They also require an understanding of the external market and what potential investors and analysts would look for to assess the viability of the company. This position, typically under the keen eye of the CFO, is very visible and subject to a lot of pressure, further narrowing the list of potential candidates.

Choice candidates who do exhibit these skills are often plucked out of larger, more established companies (IF they want to do this job again, that is). Many candidates who have already done “the corporate thing” are itching to leverage that experience and work closer to the business. If one company lures one director away from another corporate FP&A department, then that company now has to scramble to find more candidates for the same difficult-to-fill position. This process repeats itself time and time again.

Organizations can overcome a shortage of hireable talent by looking past the previous corporate FP&A experience and hiring a rising star with acute analytical experience who has excelled in a business unit or divisional level finance role. Alternatively, you could hire an ex-investment banker or management consultant and train them on the process and systems side, or, better yet, empower this high performer to figure things out for themselves. You might be surprised at what they can accomplish by leveraging their resourcefulness, network, and analytical skills they learned in their previous role. Expanding the boundaries on your traditional requirements and being willing to invest some time in training will open up the candidate pool dramatically.

Download the Salary Guide Today!
Want to know about the other eight in-demand positions Bay Area employers like yourself are struggling to fill? Download our salary guide today and find out!