Being Good With Figures Paying Off

Sep 11th, 2005 | By Bill | Category: Employment News



Being Good With Figures Paying Off:

If you love to crunch numbers, here’s some good news. Employers in Connecticut seem to be in a hiring mood for those gifted in accounting and finance.
At least that’s how the Robert Half International financial-staffing organization sees it. Its fourth-quarter survey of Connecticut chief financial officers shows a renewed interest in beefing up the ranks of financial analysts, accountants and the like during the October-through-December quarter.
That doesn’t surprise Trish Bromme, a regional vice president in Hartford for Robert Half International. She says she sees a “much higher increase in demand.” And, she says, it’s been coming in all year among her clients across Connecticut. “Unemployment rates have improved, which makes it a tighter market,” Bromme explains, adding that it can sometimes be a struggle for recruiters to find the experienced people to fill jobs.

There’s a host of reasons for the renewed interest in employment for those versed in financial matters: improving economy, increased regulation, new financial practices. Because of the big corporate accounting scandals — Adelphia, Enron, Health South, WorldCom, among others — and renewed regulatory scrutiny, especially by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and state securities regulators, all publicly traded corporations have greatly stepped up their corporate governance and compliance activities to meet these new mandates.
That means more financial types within the corporate suites and that spells employment for analysts, accountants and others who take kindly to calculators and computer spreadsheets (unlike the math-anxious minions inhabiting most newsrooms).
Bromme points out that as Congress and regulatory agencies imposed tougher oversight, corporations responded quickly to meet those challenges. But it’s not a temporary phenomenon. Corporations that beefed up their compliance departments recognized that they’ll need folks around for a long time to ensure that their books and corporate governing rules jibe with new laws and regulations.
“It’s most likely not going away,” says Bromme. Calls for more “transparency” among publicly traded institutions in terms of their accounting and financial practices have been welcomed by shareholders large and small as well as the financial press. “In order to be more compliant, you need more people coming in,” Bromme says.
She says the more bullish hiring for those in the financial field is aided by an improving economy, despite recent worries about the short-term economic effects from Hurricane Katrina. “I would say we do see an improving economy, but business is still very cautious,” she says. “Companies are still very slow in the (hiring) process, and they really take their time before deciding to hire someone,” Bromme says.
The hiring specialist also says more companies are using temporary staffing firms and temporary employment first before hiring permanently.
While that makes sense from an employer’s perspective, it also could benefit prospective employees, as well. Working in an office requires a lot of skills, beside the obvious job-required skills. There are office cultures, habits and quirks to get used to; having the right fit makes all the difference between a good job experience and one that’s anything but. So a potential worker can get the feel of a business and determine if it feels like it’s the right place to be.
“They’re being a little more cautious about where they go,” Bromme says of some temporary employees in search of full-time employment. “Many of them prefer to go in and check things out,” she says.Â

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