'Mix it Up'

The “doing it like they always do it” way of recruiting employees just wasn't working at CS&L CPAs.

Partners at the Bradenton-based accounting firm, with $7.4 million in annual revenues, had several vacant positions about a year ago, from entry level to senior management. “It wasn't good for morale or community perception,” says Aubrey Lynch, a CPA and principal at the firm, which has clients in health care, retail and real estate, among other industries.

The firm's solution: Get creative — a counterintuitive approach for an established accounting firm. CS&L has offices in downtown Sarasota and downtown Bradenton and a name that dates back 60 years.
“We tend to be a conservative industry, so we wanted to mix it up,” says Lynch. “We had always used recruiting services or waited for people to drop in our lap. But for us to grow we had to get some candidates who could accelerate quickly.”

The firm's strategy, launched a year ago, is a revamp of its entire recruiting department. First, the eight senior partners at CS&L named Lynch the recruiting partner, a position that didn't previously exist.
Then Lynch and Marissa Rossnagle, a CS&L public relations and marketing specialist, created a job recruitment package that includes print materials and a YouTube video. The 5:18 video, filmed in the firm's offices, has real CS&L employees talking about their real work-life experience. The glossy print brochure has information about the firm and the Sarasota-Manatee area. There's also a list of apartments and restaurants.

It cost around $40,000 to assemble the materials, and at least another $35,000 or so in non-billable hours Lynch devoted to the project. The packet is available on a Zip disk that CS&L distributes at college job fairs. “We put a lot of resources, assets and whatever else we could into this,” says Lynch. “It was a full-blown campaign.”

The project has been a big success. The firm has hired about 12 people in the last year, for a payroll that now hovers around 50 people. The recruitment project also led the firm to discover several interns from highly ranked accounting schools such as the University of Indiana and the University of Illinois. One of those interns accepted a full-time job at the firm.

The campaign even helps recruit students from inside Florida, including recent USF and UF grads. Sometimes those students will head to New York or Chicago, to work for bigger firms. But this project, says Lynch, gives prospective employees an option they might not have known about.

“Competing with the Big Four (accounting firms) is hard to do,” says Lynch. “But we are more visible to people now.”

Beyond recruitment, another challenge lingers: Employee retention. That's especially true for recent grads and interns, who usually need significant guidance and training — something with which many firms grapple. Says Lynch: “You can't just throw someone in there and say 'figure it out.'”

So CS&L has also taken steps to enhance that side of hiring. That includes a more comprehensive mentoring program; a “fun” committee headed by Rossnagle to help employees de-stress; and organized happy hours and work outings. The firm even rents a furnished apartment in downtown Bradenton for interns, so they don't have to find housing for a semester.

The overarching goal, says Lynch, is to have a firm where the best people seek it out for work. “Talented and ambitious people,” she says, “like to work with talented and ambitious people.”

Follow Mark Gordon on Twitter @markigordon