Amtec Hiring Guides

How to Hire Chief Financial Officers in Tacoma

Amtec Hiring Guides

How to Hire Chief Financial Officers in Tacoma

Current Environment

Hiring a Chief Financial Officer for your company can seem like a daunting task and something that you may not need or be able to afford. However, not having a CFO can actually be more expensive than hiring one. A successful CFO Recruiter will apply a process for identifying a top-notch candidate who matches both the required qualifications and is a long-term cultural fit with your company.

A chief financial officer can help your company generate the requirements for operational and departmental budgets, create and enforce operational policies that increase systemic efficiency and reduce costs, and manage or co-manage all banking activities, financial agreements, and funding as well as debt sources.

History

For most of the 20th Century, the role of the chief financial officer didn’t exist. However, after the regulatory changes of the 1970s, companies had to take financial considerations much more seriously than they ever did before.

Then, as mergers became particularly popular in the 1980s, companies learned that they needed to perform better or get swallowed up by the competition. CFOs became indispensable for identifying the weakest performing business units and helping them to grow and improve efficiency.

Today, 70% of billion-dollar companies have expanded the role of their chief financial officer to include strategic business analysis. Of course, your company doesn’t need to be a billion-dollar company to hire a CFO. The vast majority (76%) of 250 surveyed CFOs see themselves as a “navigator,” well equipped to guide their teams through fluctuating economic conditions.

How will Recruiting chief financial officers Help Your Company?

How will Hiring chief financial officers Help Your Company?

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, a company’s CFO is more integral to operations than ever. In fact, about 41% of CFOs spend the majority of their time on non-finance-related activities, fueling data-driven decisions across the business.

The role and responsibilities of the job are rapidly changing. It’s clear that for the modern CFO, the job description now includes business strategist. These company power players are expanding their traditional responsibilities and tapping the power of data analytics to forecast and make strategic decisions to fuel business success. By providing company stakeholders with a holistic view of the entire organization, the CFO takes center stage and enables the executive team and board of directors to embark on a rapid growth trajectory.

chief financial officer Details

Responsibilities

Before we get to exactly how to hire the best Chief Financial Officer, let’s review some of the details of the job.

CFOs are responsible for managing the financial decisions of a company or organization. They are often responsible for executing the company’s financial strategy, developing plans for growth to increase company profit while also reducing expenditure, identifying investment opportunities and managing mergers and acquisitions, and assisting the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to develop financial plans.

Additional job responsibilities:

  • Manage accounting procedures and generally an accounting and finance staff
  • Financial forecasting
  • US GAAP
  • Understanding of compliance and regulations
  • Finance/cash management
  • Accounts payable/receivable
  • Big data and analytics
  • Mathematics
  • Leadership abilities
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
  • Have a growth mindset and the ability to instill that in others.

Looking for another position? View other positions we place in Tacoma, Washington.

Education

Most CFO positions require a Bachelor’s degree, and many CFOs require a CPA, CFA, and/or an MBA and significant experience in the financial industry (5+ years). Some experienced CFOs may be able to use their years of experience to replace an academic degree. While candidates can complete a degree in Business Administration, Public Administration, Finance, or Accounting, a wide variety of degrees may qualify someone for the role, depending on their previous experience.

Top Schools – US News & World Report rankings.

Top Schools

  •

    University of Texas at Austin

  • BYU-Provo

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2019 U.S. National Data

Salary Range

chief financial officers in the U.S.

$57k
Low
$135k
Average
$208k
High

$133k

Average WA
Salary

$63.90

Average WA
Hourly
2252k

Total chief financial officers Employed in the U.S.

57.9%

Men

42.1%

Women

chief financial officer Salary Comparison

National

CFOs are typically lumped in with other C-Suite executives. According to the BLS, there is a projection that there will be an average amount of growth in the next 10 years. The role of the CFO will continue to be more complex and more technologically driven, thus all but guaranteeing that, as long as there is money involved with a company, there will be a growing need for experts in the role.

Washington

The average annual salary for chief financial officers in Washington was 133k in 2019. The hourly wage averaged $63.90.

For more detailed compensation information for chief financial officers in Tacoma, download our free compensation/salary report below.

Working in Tacoma

Tacoma is a picturesque city in Washington on the banks of Puget Sound, located just north of its neighbor and “big sister” Seattle. But Tacoma is definitely a city with its own identity. Due to its thriving job market and progressive culture, Tacoma is also known as the City of Destiny.

Its natural beauty, ocean-front location, focus on arts and culture, and its proximity to the impressive Mount Ranier give Tacoma a ton of character.

Here are a few additional “pros” for living and working in Tacoma.

Pros

    • The crown jewel of Tacoma is Point Defiance Park, which some compare to  NYC’s Central Park as far as size and stuff to do.  The park has 760 acres of trails, gardens, forests, playgrounds, and waterfront activities like boating and swimming.
    • It’s also home to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium.
    • Museums: The city boasts several world-renowned museums: the Museum of Glass, the Tacoma Art Museum, and the Washington State History Museum.
    • Tacoma Arts Live features three theaters, the Tacoma City Ballet, Tacoma Philharmonic, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, and Puget Sound Revels.
    • Tacoma gets good reviews on its food scene, and most locals would point to Ruston Way for the best seafood restaurants, or cross the Tacoma Narrow’s Bridge to the charming city of Gig Harbor for more waterfront dining options.
    • The cost of living is lower than in neighboring Seattle. This calculator estimates that Tacoma is 34% cheaper overall than Seattle, and the median home cost is 56% less.

While there are many good things people report about living and working in Tacoma, there are a few complaints.

Cons

    • When comparing Tacoma to Seattle schools, the school data shows that Seattle has better statistics for Pre-K-12 schools. Tacoma has more students per teacher and a lower high school graduation rate, and while 28% of students go on to get a 4-year degree, 62% achieve the same in Seattle.
    • The Tacoma Aroma. What?? It’s a rancid, unpleasant odor that occurs occasionally in the tidal flats. Describe it as that kind of sulfuric, rotten egg smell. It’s a byproduct of industrialization in the area.
Tacoma, Washington

Current Weather

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Demand for chief financial officers in Tacoma

Demand for chief financial officers in Tacoma

Chief financial officers are responsible for the care and strategic forecasting of the whole of the company’s finances. As such, they can expect to be well compensated for the high levels of responsibility that accompany the job. As long as companies involve money, there will continue to be a place for the chief financial officer.

The supply of candidates and demand for open positions have a direct correlation to a company's ability to hire. Download a free Supply and Demand report for chief financial officers in Tacoma, Washington below.

How to Hire the Best chief financial officers

Finding and hiring the best chief financial officer candidates can save you money right away and well into the future.

The costs of making a bad hire are well documented. The cost can run as much as 30% of the employee's first-year earnings according to the US Department of Labor. Bad hires can cost a whopping $240,000 in expenses related to hiring, compensation, and retention per The Undercover Recruiter. 74% of companies who admit they've hired the wrong person for a position lost an average of $14,900 for each bad hire according to CareerBuilder. These statistics support our long-held position that behavioral questions are the best way to get to know your candidates and past behavior is the best indicator of future performance.

Recruiting Best Practices

The information below comes from the best practices Amtec uses for finding the highest quality candidates.

Defining the Position

When defining the role you are creating, we recommend a position profile to fully evaluate the position you are hiring for. You must decide if the engineer can work remotely or must work in Washington. If working in Tacoma is essential, make sure you include that in your job posting so candidates can decide how many miles they can commute.

How to Source the Best Candidates

When you are looking to source the best quality candidates for your open positions, make sure you have done the legwork to hire an "A Player". You can do this by making sure your company's perspective is aligned with the current market, you have taken into account the job responsibilities, as well as what type of characteristics you are looking for to fit your company culture. Then proceed to write a job posting to attract high-quality candidates.

Characteristics of chief financial officers

According to many reports, while the mainstays of the chief financial officer have and will remain the same, the CFO of the future will increasingly be called upon to:

  • Take on organizational strategy, which is particularly daunting for a large organization with multiple divisions, locations, or business units.
  • Be an internal negotiator, cheerleader, and decision-maker, as the person in the role is ultimately responsible for favorable financial results.
  • Be a leader and company spokesperson regarding financial results

In today’s fast-paced business environment, the role of the CFO is extremely fluid; hence, hiring the right person is critical for your organization.

How to Screen Candidates

You wrote a job posting, posted the position online, and received a lot more resumes than you’d bargained for! Next comes the enormous task of sorting through those resumes to eliminate the ones that are clearly not a good fit. Now, you have a stack of resumes for candidates who have potential. So how do you go about screening the remaining candidates?

It starts on the phone! As a recruiter, the goal of your telephone screening is to learn more about your candidates. You can confirm that they have the educational qualifications and relevant experience, but you also need to determine if they would fit into your company's culture. To make this job easier, use a system to consistently evaluate results. This way you can equally and objectively compare candidates and evaluate their "soft skills", like communication and thinking process. Download Amtec's Professional Assessment Questionnaire below to help with screening candidates.

Free Professional Assessment Questionnaire

An individually customized questionnaire that helps assess a candidate's competence with written communication skills, thinking processes, and other relevant skills.

How to Interview Candidates

At Amtec, we believe in the power of behavoral interview questions to go beyond the experience and skills listed on the candidate's resume. Although you will want to confirm in the interview that the candidate does indeed have the experience listed on their resume, your assessment needs to go much deeper than that. An interview using behavioral questions can help you determine how well the candidate will fit with your company culture.

Download Amtec's best practices on conducting super effective interviews to find the best candidates and fill your open jobs.

Behavioral Interview Guide

Get the info you need to hire the best chief financial officers

Free Interview Guide