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02 MAY 2018

Hiring the Perfect Accountant

Aims of this Webinar

• Familiarise the webinar audience with the selection criteria (quotients) that ACCA associate with success in current & projected accountant roles

• Enable you to identify whether these quotients are already in your selection criteria & existing selection methods, how you can sharpen existing practices & add new processes to make measurable improvements to your recruitment activities

• Specify selection methods for assessing whether an accounting/bookkeeping candidate possesses each quotient, as well as the competencies you already have in place

• Give you a simple reference guide to use in current & future recruitment activities

• Provide ongoing practical support & direction as & when you need it

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Hiring the Perfect Accountant

• ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) report June 2016

• “The accountant’s role has been revolutionised over the past decade, with finance professionals

becoming leaders, trusted expert counsel and key strategic advisers to organisations whether in the

public or private sectors. With this metamorphosis comes a requirement for a whole new set of skills. On

top of technical excellence, professional accountants now require creativity, emotional intelligence and

the vision to lead.”

• Helen Bland, CEO at ACCA

• ACCA seven ‘Professional Quotients’

• How can you assess these attributes in a candidate?

• See ACCA http://future.accaglobal.com/the-future-of-accountancy/the-seven-skills-for-success

1. Technical & Ethical (TEQ): The skills and abilities to perform activities consistently to a defined standard

• Testing hard skill & knowledge by requiring candidates to prove they possess them in a test

rather than talk about them in an interview.

• Tests pitched at the complexity required in the job

• Validated, Reliable tests completed online

• Online Technical Competence Testing in essential software (MS-Excel, MYOB etc)

• www.Accountests.com - assess technical accounting skills and knowledge with the only

current, valid & country-specific accounting tests in the world

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Work Skills Testing – Accountests

• Pre-employment work skills testing for accountants and bookkeepers

• Need statistical validity

• Test should either use a ‘cut score’ or be ‘normed’ so you can compare your candidate to pre-

set competency requirement or to the population

• Practical questions faced by those in public practice or industry on a day to day basis (not

textbook questions)

• Based on terminology and legislation that are valid for Australia

• Tests appropriate for expected competency

• Accountests use – CA, Part Qualified, Bookkeeper, Basic Double Entry Accounting, Public

Sector, Management Accty & Cost Accounting

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Benefits of Work Skills Testing

• Identify strong candidates quickly – speed up hiring process

• Consider weaker candidates in context of the rest of their performance in the process

• Establish training / mentoring / buddy processes to fit expected candidate ability

• Strengthen focus of later interview and reference checking

• Most are using prior to final interview

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2. Intelligence (IQ): The ability to acquire and use knowledge: thinking, reasoning and solving problems.

• Does my candidate have the intellectual horsepower to perform at the level required in this job?

• Host of valid, reliable psychometric ability tests to measure this attribute

• Readily accessible to employers & candidates as online assessments

• Typically tests of numerical, verbal & abstract reasoning

• Differing levels of complexity to match the requirements of the job

• General Reasoning for everyday office arithmetic, checking & business English comprehension for support staff

• High level Critical Reasoning Tests for Managers & Professionals, making sense of complex information, turning raw data into meaningful financial information, spotting trends, outliers & concerns

Ability Tests Output

Critical Reasoning Test General Reasoning Test

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3. Creativity (CQ): The ability to use existing knowledge in a new situation, to make connections, explore potential outcomes, and generate new ideas.

• Abstract reasoning psychometric ability tests – typically

included in Ability Test Suites, so you get to measure CQ

by measuring IQ

• Blend with assessment centre exercises requiring

analysis of complex information to make

recommendations

• Situational Judgement tests as well as personality profile

traits of creativity, change and strategic focus

4. Digital (DQ): Awareness and application of existing and emerging digital technologies, capabilities, practices, strategies and culture.

• Sound interview questions and reference checking

• Interviewer who is technologically savvy

• Does candidate see technology as threat rather than an opportunity?

• May include extra-curricular activities as well as ‘at work’ activities

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All Interviews Are Not Equal!

• Five of the Seven Quotients can be assessed by Candidate Interviews

• But – only if interviews are conducted by competently trained & skilled interviewers

• Unstructured & poorly interviews are weak selection methods & poor predictors of

success in the job

• Interviewing is a bit like driving – very few people are prepared to admit they’re not

competent at either

• Do you need to consider getting staff trained up to conduct interviews effectively

• Or, bring in skilled & experienced interviewers as support people to assist with selection?

• Competency/Behavioural Based Interviewing Techniques are not new, but generally

accepted as the most effective & structured approach

• Referees interviewed in the same style to lift the effectiveness of reference checking

• Training available through HR Consulting Firms

• Lominger manuals of Competency Based Questions can be a valuable starting point

• See http://www.hsu.edu/Career/completelistofbehavioral.pdf11

5. Emotional intelligence (EQ): Ability to identify your own emotions and those of others, harness and apply them to tasks, and regulate and manage them.

• Better personality questionnaires that include traits associated with Emotional

Intelligence, including warmth towards others, team focus, being trusting / supportive,

focusing on subtle people-implications in problem solving and decision making.

• There are questionnaires based entirely on EQ

• However, we always recommend broader 'whole of personality' assessments such as

15FQ+ & OPQ32 to acquire EQ assessments in addition to team-roles, leadership,

subordinate & influencing styles, stress & change tolerance, interactions with others,

decision making & problem solving preferences

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Personality Profiling – Key Points

• Valuable addition to candidate selection decision making – but not used in isolation

• Well suited to assessing four of the seven ACCA quotients

• Opportunity to collect selection evidence in 20 minutes that would take several hours to elicit via structured interview

• Important to avoid pitfalls of poor profiling tools with low validity & reliability scales; difficult without guidance in Australia’s semi-unregulated psychometrics marketplace

• Readily accessible online for employers & candidatesInterview Questions to cover potential concerns & priority development areas accompany reports

• Professional Development Plans can be derived from the better profiling questionnairesAlways have a ‘final interview’ afterwards to check strengths & potential concerns with candidates & referees

• Best practice to provide feedback reports & offer of phone/face-to-face feedback sessions to candidates

6. Vision (VQ): The ability to predict future trends accurately by extrapolating existing trends and facts, and filling the gaps by thinking innovatively.

• High level verbal critical reasoning tests e.g. Watson Glaser & Psytech's CRTB1 assess abilities

to make logical assumptions based on current information.

• The better personality questionnaires also assess softer visionary traits, including thinking

strategically without being held back by traditional conventions, policies or mind-sets

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7. Experience (XQ): The ability and skills to understand customer expectations, meet desired outcomes and create value.

• This is the easy bit

• Relevant information gathered from CV's & application forms.

• Validated by good interviewers interviewing both candidates and referees

• Accountests Scores demonstrate whether experience translates to accumulated professional

knowledge

• Software & IT Skills Tests

Matching ACCA Quotients with Selection Methods

Assessment/

Quotient

Accounting

Skills Test

Psychometric

Ability Testing

Personality

Profiling

Competency

Interviewing

Reference

Checking

CV IT & Software

Skills Testing

Technical

Quotient (TQ)√ √

Intellectual

Quotient (IQ)√

Creative

Quotient (CQ)√ √ √ √

Digital Quotient

(DQ)√ √ √ √

Emotional

Intelligence EQ√ √ √

Vision

Quotient (VQ)√ √ √ √

Experience

Quotient (XQ)√ √ √ √

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0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60

Blending Assessments of Skills, Ability & Personality

Work sample tests

Ability tests

Structured interviews

Personality questionnaires

Assessment centres

Biodata – CV’s & Supporting Info

References

Unstructured interviews

Years of job experience

Interests

Years of education

Graphology

Predictive Validity of Selection Measures and Job Performance (Robinson & Smith 2001)

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Sourcing Assessments to Measure the Seven ACCA Quotients

• Essentially, adding Skills Testing & Psychometric Testing/Profiling of Ability &

Personality to Good Interviews & Reference Checking covers all 7 quotients

• Where to source them?

• Your HR function &/or Trusted Advisors.

• Are they using testing & assessment already?

• Do the assessments they use measure these quotients?

• If not, ask us at steve@accountests.com or +64 21 772 649

• See our sister company, People Central Ltd at www.peoplecentral.co.nz for a one-

stop-shop of Skills, Software & Ability Testing & Personality Profiling

• CCH Members enjoy a 20% Discount on Accountests Products. Contact Us to set

up your discounted account

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Questions?

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• You can type them in the “Questions” box now

• Or contact me via:

• Steve Evans

• Accountests

• steve@accountests.com

• +64 21 772 649