Origin Staffing - Thoughts on Recruitment

Why Hiring a High-Impact Accounting Manager Can be Difficult, Even With Thousands of Applicants

Hiring an Accounting Manager should be straightforward. Write the job description, post the role, review resumes, interview qualified CPAs, and make an offer. In reality, for growing companies with real accounting complexity, this hire is often one of the hardest decisions a finance leader will make.

At Origin Staffing, we recently completed a fully remote Accounting Manager search for a scaling, globally distributed company. To protect confidentiality, all identifying details have been removed. What remains is a detailed look at why this search was difficult, what made it unique, and what it reveals about how senior accounting talent should be evaluated when the role truly matters.

This article is written for CFOs, Controllers, and finance leaders who want a realistic view of what it takes to hire the right accounting leader in today’s market.

The Company Context: Complex Enough to Require Judgment, Lean Enough to Require Execution

The company was past the startup phase but not yet an enterprise. Like many modern technology-enabled businesses, it had grown through a mix of organic expansion and acquisitions, which introduced complexity across revenue recognition, consolidation, and audit readiness.

This stage of growth is well documented as a pressure point for organizations, particularly when systems and processes lag behind scale, a challenge explored in Harvard Business Review’s discussion on why scaling too quickly strains operations.

When hiring an accounting manager, they needed to operate at the center of this environment, owning outcomes personally while partnering closely with leadership and external auditors.

Why the Job Title Did Not Reflect the Real Scope

The title “Accounting Manager” masked the true scope of the role.

In practice, the hire needed to be fully accountable for month-end and quarter-end close, reconciliations, audit support, and applied GAAP judgment in complex areas like revenue recognition and business combinations.

Anyone who has worked directly with revenue recognition understands how judgment-heavy ASC 606 can be, particularly in SaaS and services models. The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s implementation guidance on Topic 606 illustrates just how much interpretation is required around performance obligations, variable consideration, and timing, especially when hiring an accounting manager.

Similarly, acquisition accounting under ASC 805 is rarely theoretical. As outlined in PwC’s Viewpoint guidance on business combinations, real-world application requires coordination across valuation, legal, finance, and audit teams, often under tight timelines.

This role required someone who could apply those standards while still closing the books.

The Ideal Background Was Much Narrower Than It Looked

At first glance, the requirements seemed common:

CPA credential
Public accounting experience
Industry accounting exposure

In practice, very few candidates met all three in a meaningful way.

The strongest candidates followed a pattern frequently discussed in AICPA career guidance on transitioning from public accounting to industry, where professionals combine technical foundation with operational ownership rather than remaining purely advisory:

Over time, it became clear that candidates coming from companies roughly in the $40M–$300M revenue range were far more likely to have the required breadth. In those environments, accounting managers cannot rely on specialization alone and must understand the full accounting cycle.

Why Technical Accounting Advisory Experience Was Not Always Enough

One of the most counterintuitive lessons from the search involved candidates with strong technical accounting or advisory backgrounds.

Many had deep exposure to ASC 606 and ASC 805, experience drafting technical memos, and confidence interacting with auditors. Yet many lacked sustained ownership of the month-end close.

Advisory professionals are often excellent at analysis, but many have not personally run a close under deadline pressure. They may review reconciliations rather than prepare them, or advise on close processes rather than execute them repeatedly.

The AICPA’s guidance on what makes a successful month-end close emphasizes that close ownership requires prioritization, judgment, and rapid issue resolution, not just technical knowledge:

For this role, technical expertise without operational accountability was not sufficient.

Why Company Size Became a Critical Filter

Company size emerged as one of the strongest predictors of success.

Candidates from very small companies often lacked exposure to audit rigor and complex revenue arrangements. Candidates from very large enterprises often had deep expertise in a narrow area but limited visibility into the full accounting cycle.

The strongest candidates came from environments that were complex but still lean, aligning closely with the type of organizations described in Deloitte’s controllership perspective on financial close and execution.

These environments tend to produce accounting leaders who can both think critically and act decisively.

The Reality of a Fully Remote Role

Because the role was fully remote, the applicant pool was enormous. A single LinkedIn posting generated close to 2,000 applications.

Remote work has permanently changed hiring dynamics. Academic research published via ScienceDirect shows that remote roles attract significantly higher applicant volume while also increasing variance in candidate quality.

Remote work also allows companies to be more selective. When geography is no longer a constraint, there is little reason to compromise on core requirements. The challenge becomes filtering signal from noise without overwhelming internal teams.

The Remote Accounting Job Landscape Has Changed

Remote work is no longer a differentiator in accounting and finance hiring. It has become the baseline.

What has changed is how both candidates and companies approach fully remote roles. Early in the shift to remote work, offering location flexibility dramatically expanded candidate pools and accelerated hiring. Today, most experienced Accounting Manager candidates have already worked remotely, and as a result, remote work alone no longer attracts top-tier talent. Instead, it raises expectations.

From a recruiting perspective, remote roles now produce significantly higher application volume while also increasing variance in candidate quality. When geography is removed as a constraint, candidates apply more freely, often without fully understanding the scope or complexity of the role. This places greater pressure on the hiring process to identify substance rather than surface-level fit.

This shift has also changed how recruiting must be done. Job descriptions alone are no longer sufficient. Candidates want clarity around expectations, authority, and success metrics, especially during critical periods like month-end close and audits.

In today’s market, remote work does not simplify hiring. It raises the bar. Companies that treat remote roles as a well-defined operating model, rather than a perk, consistently attract stronger and more aligned accounting talent.

Why the Intake Call Was the Most Important Step

Before sourcing candidates, Origin Staffing conducted a detailed intake call with the hiring leaders. This went far beyond reviewing the job description.

We focused on what success would look like in the first year, where leadership felt the most exposure with auditors, which technical areas were non-negotiable, and what had gone wrong with previous finalist profiles. This allowed for a smooth process when hiring an accounting manager.

This approach aligns with long-standing research on hiring effectiveness, including Harvard Business Review’s analysis of why most hiring decisions fail when expectations are poorly defined.

What Ultimately Differentiated the Finalists

By the final stages, the remaining candidates shared several traits:

CPA credential with a public accounting foundation
Hands-on ownership of close and reconciliations
Applied experience with ASC 606 and ASC 805
Comfort interacting directly with auditors
Experience in organizations that required both independence and collaboration

None were perfect on paper. What mattered was judgment, execution ability, and credibility.

Final Thought

This Accounting Manager search was difficult because it mattered. The company needed someone who could strengthen the function without slowing it down.

Those candidates exist. Finding them requires clarity, rigor, and a recruiting process designed for precision rather than volume.

If you are facing a similar hire, the most important work happens before the first resume is reviewed. Hiring an Accounting Manager should be straightforward. You write the job description, post the role, review resumes, interview qualified CPAs, and make an offer.

In reality, for growing companies with real accounting complexity, this hire is often one of the hardest decisions a finance leader will make.

How Origin Staffing Approaches Searches Like This

Origin Staffing is built for roles where the cost of a miss is high: controllership leadership, finance transformation, technical accounting + operational ownership, and high-expectation environments where the hire must elevate the team.

Our approach emphasizes:

intake that defines the operating system behind the role
a candidate map built around controllership fit, not keyword matching
consistent evaluation criteria across multiple candidate pools
detailed feedback loops that improve outcomes round by round
disciplined candidate prep focused on clarity, maturity, and authentic value

If it’s helpful to talk through a current hire, you can reach us via Contact, and follow updates on our LinkedIn company page.

This search was led by Devin Martinez – Recruiting Manager at Origin Staffing