62. People Problems | with Paul McDonald

Today, we’re talking about the elephant in the room, or what Tom Hood would call the dead moose in the room. That thing that’s stinking up the joint but that nobody wants to do anything about – or, more to the point, nobody knows what to do about it.   That dead moose is talent.    How do you find it? How do you keep it? How do you set your organization apart from all the others out there so people want to work for you?   It’s a HUGE problem, and here’s why in three short words: One point five.   That’s the unemployment rate for accountants and auditors. One point five percent. The national average is 3.7 percent. That means it’s more than twice as hard for employers to find great employees than everyone else.   Welcome to reality, and reality continues to get more and more harsh. Ten thousand Baby Boomers reach retirement age every single day. That means one of two things: they’re retiring and they’re taking all of their wisdom and experience with them or they’re continuing to work, which means younger professionals have fewer opportunities to advance their careers, which means they’re more likely to look elsewhere for those opportunities.   So, from a people perspective, accounting and finance professionals are dealing with a lot these days, and it’s not getting any easier.    So we sat down with Paul McDonald, Senior Executive Director at Robert Half, which specializes in the placement of professionals in the accounting and finance, technology, legal, creative, and administrative fields. Paul has more than 30 years in the recruiting field and he has advised thousands of company leaders and job seekers on how to hire and get hired.   To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.   Resources: Learn more at RobertHalf.com Read: “The Future of Work: Adapting to technological change” Read: “How to Make the Accountant Unemployment Rate Work for You” Twitter: twitter.com/paulcmcdonald Learn more at MACPA.org/future-learning Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters