The market for senior finance and accounting talent is tight. Good controllers and CFOs have options, and they know it. So the hiring managers who consistently land them aren't the ones writing the biggest checks.
They're the ones running a better process.
I've watched this play out across dozens of searches. The best hiring managers do a handful of things differently. None of them are complicated. Most managers just don't do them.
They move fast without cutting corners
Speed is the single biggest predictor of who lands the candidate.
Not speed as in rushing. Speed as in no dead air. The best managers turn around feedback within a day. They keep interview loops tight. They don't let a strong candidate sit for two weeks while three stakeholders find time on their calendars.
Here's why it matters. When you're slow, the candidate reads it as either disinterest or dysfunction. Neither helps you. And in a competitive market, slow means someone else closes first.
You can move fast and still be thorough. The two aren't in conflict. What kills you is the gap between interviews, not the number of them.
They sell the role, not just screen for it
Most hiring managers treat interviews as a one-way filter. They're evaluating the candidate. Full stop.
The best ones know the interview runs both directions. A senior finance leader is interviewing you back. They want to know who they'd report to, what the actual problems are, and whether this is a step up or a lateral move dressed up in a new title.
So the best managers sell. They talk about the work that matters. They're honest about what's broken and why it's a good problem to own. They make the candidate want the job.
Screening tells you if someone can do the role. Selling is what gets them to take it.
They decide what great looks like before the first call
Vague criteria create slow, political hiring.
When a team hasn't agreed on what they're actually looking for, every candidate becomes a debate. One person wants more technical depth. Another wants leadership presence. A third is hung up on industry background. Nobody's wrong, but nobody aligned first, so the process drags.
The best hiring managers define the must-haves before they see a single resume. Three or four things that actually matter. Everything else is a nice-to-have.
This does two things. It speeds up decisions because you're measuring against a fixed bar. And it stops you from passing on a strong candidate over a trait that was never essential.
They protect the candidate experience the whole way through
You can run a great early process and still lose the finalist at the end.
It happens when the experience falls apart in the final stretch. Scheduling gets sloppy. Someone goes quiet for a week. The offer conversation feels transactional instead of personal.
Senior candidates notice all of it. The way you hire is a preview of how you operate. If your process feels disorganized, they assume the job will too.
The best managers stay engaged through the close. They communicate even when there's no news. They treat the candidate like someone they're recruiting, not someone they're processing. That consistency is often the deciding factor when two offers are on the table.
They partner with their recruiter instead of managing them
The managers who get the best results treat search as a two-way relationship.
That means sharing real feedback after every interview, not just a yes or no. It means being honest when the criteria shift mid-search. It means trusting the person who's talking to candidates all day to tell you what the market is actually saying about your role and your comp.
When I get that kind of partnership, I can move faster and bring sharper candidates. When I'm guessing, everyone's slower.
The best hiring managers I work with don't hand off a req and wait. They stay in it.
None of this requires a bigger budget. It requires a tighter process and the discipline to run it the same way every time.
If you're hiring senior finance or accounting talent and your process keeps stalling out, that's usually the fix. Let's talk about what your search actually needs.
Tommy Zapp is the founder of Zapp Talent Strategies, a search firm placing senior finance, accounting, HR, and tax leaders. tommy@zapptalent.com