Hiring a great CFO, tips and tricks

Everybody who has ever hired somebody for any position already knows how hard it is to find the right person for the job. But when you are hiring somebody for the position of Chief Financial Officer or CFO then the job has just gotten that much harder because of the importance of that position and how nobody wants to be known as the person who hired the CFO that wasn't up to the job. But luckily there are a few tips and tricks that you can use when hiring a CFO so that you can make the best decision possible to help your company.

Here are some tips and tricks to hiring a great CFO.

Tip one:
Look to hire from inside the company first. You want your new Chief Financial Officer or CFO to have the same values and morals that your company has. Chances are many of your employees who are working in accounting or finance already share those views. What you need to do is look at your current employees to see if any of them have the traits and qualifications that you are looking for to become the next CFO.

Tip two:
Decide what you want in a CFO ahead of time and stick to those guidelines. Do not constantly change your requirements. This can lead to disorganization and a slap dash style of management because not everybody will be on the same page. When you are deciding on the traits and qualifications that your new CFO should have you will want to take a look at what your hiring guidelines were previously and then take a look at how the company has changed to see if you need to update your qualifications.

Tip three:
Because the CFO is going to be a part of the management team, executive management or senior management depending on how you want to categorize it, you are going to want to look for someone who has different strengths than you. You do not want to hire somebody who shares the same strengths that you do, by having all of your management team strong in marketing and weak in computers you do not have a wide variety of experience to rely on. Also by having different strengths your management team can come up with a wider variety of solutions to problems, and sometimes to fix a problem requires you to think outside the box. But do make sure the share the same values and morals that your company does.

Tip four:
Look for somebody with good personal skills. While they may look great on paper, not all people who apply can interact with other employees. Ask them questions that make them explain what they have done in past situations, you can also have a group interview and ask them to give a presentation to view their personal skills. The reason why you are looking for somebody who has good personal skills is because they are going to be in charge of handing down instructions and working with other employees, so you are going to want them to be able to clearly communicate with the other employees. But not only do you want to make sure that they have good personal skills but you also want to make sure that they have leadership qualities.

Tip five:
Do not just interview people; when looking at a group of people choose some based on the information you have that you do not think will make it, due to lack of leadership skills, their resume looks sloppy, etc. Then while doing the entire interview process put them to the test to see how well they do. What this means is to place them in an actual work scenario that they might face one day to see how they handle it. Just because they look good or bad on paper does not mean they are the right or wrong person for the job. You need to examine each candidate carefully.

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Categories: Management,

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