My first impressions of small business bookkeeping and accounting are negative. In 2001, I seriously considered never doing consulting work again because every small business bookkeeper or accountant I encountered thought they were experts. Most were not. I continually observed the competence gap between their perceived and actual skill levels.

Today, I typically sit at the decision table when my clients are upgrading or turning over their small accounting departments. My favorite role is interviewing accounting candidates to flesh out the imposters from the winners.

These 5 Questions Reveal the Cream of the Crop or the Duds

I’ve spent more than ten years getting these questions just right. Feel free to use them and tweak them to your situation. Here are my fab five, accompanied by my reasoning:

Question 1 – What ERP system have you recently worked with? Feel free to list the others, but provide the most recent. Comment on your experience with the system—easy, hard, other? What modules did you work with the most?

The goal is to weed out accountants with just a QuickBooks background unless they are a great culture fit with high competence. If the accountant has only worked in a QuickBooks environment, that means he or she has only worked in small companies (more than likely).

Question 2 – What steps do you perform in the month-end process? Since you started your last position, has the month-end close improved or stayed about the same? Why?

In accounting, if you can close financials quickly and accurately, the candidate can pretty much do anything. This answer provides the breadth and depth of the accountant’s skillset and the ability to recommend changes to a major process.

Question 3 – Name the 5-7 activities you perform daily. For each step, input the following:

I want each candidate to populate the Origin column with one of the following numbers:

1 – I created the activity or process
2 – I have improved the activity or process
3 – I only follow the process

I created this question because it provides us with multiple insights. First, we find out exactly what this person has done, and if it aligns with your client’s needs or if their skills can transfer to the type of work the candidate will perform.

Furthermore, we learn about the accountant’s leadership abilities. More than likely, processes were already in place. However, the table allows us to see if they can see problems or issues with current workflows.

Question 4 – What are the first 5 pages you study or examine of your current financial package? Feel free to comment on non-financial data, too.

Even if you are not hiring a financial analyst, the question above gives us insights as to whether the accountant is just a clerk or data entry person or if they truly appreciate the end product–financial statements. Consider it a bonus if the accountant enjoys studying and tearing apart the financials. While you might think that’s the job of the CFO, it’s not. The head accountant should have a strong fluency in financial statement analysis.

Question 5 – What are your five favorite Excel tricks the typical user may not know or rarely use? How are these tips and tricks helpful to your current company?

Again, consider it a bonus if you are hiring an Excel jockey. However, if the person has some great tricks, then:

The person takes initiative by looking for (Excel) solutions online—that takes effort
Many savvy Excel stars are strong analysts
The correlation will be high with better-than-average accounting technical skills

The candidate mentioning that they use vlookups and PivotTables regularly means they are a ‘plus’ Excel user.

Bonus Question – If you were to create a weekly dashboard from the ground up for the CEO or the management team, what would you include? What might it look like? Explain your answer.

I always ask this question because I want to know the type of person I’m getting. Most accounting managers perform poorly on this question, so they are not getting good training in prior positions. Results will be mixed with your controller candidates, especially if they are accounting-centric instead of having an FP&A mindset.

What About Bookkeeper Hires?

You’ll probably wind up hiring more bookkeepers than you do accounting managers and accountants.

My favorite test to administer to bookkeepers is the one already created by the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers. I’ve tweaked some of the questions and have the candidates take it during a GoToMeeting. Yes, I want the candidate to stress over this exercise by having me watch over their shoulder as they take it.

I also have an account with ClassMarker, where I’ve created my own 25-question test. I like the ability to create my own questions and tweak the test occasionally.

Hiring Based on the 3 Parts of the Human Mind

I am a Kolbe Certified™ Consultant, so I have all candidates take the Kolbe A™ Index. From a conative standpoint, candidates must be fact-finders and initiating follow thrus (Kathy Kolbe defines these instincts on her website).

Hiring for cultural fit is critical, too. Generally, my client and I can weed out the likable experts through the 3 different interviews we have with each candidate and the references they supply us. For some of my clients, we have the client arrange the phone calls between their references and myself and the client.

This process may appear that I’m placing more emphasis on cognitive skills over conative and affective candidate attributes. I’m not. That’s because my client and I are hiring the whole person, not just a part of them.

Don’t Forget to Track Your Candidates

Small companies with revenues less than $15 million and under 25-30 employees generally do not have any tracking system whatsoever, let alone an ATS (applicant tracking system). That means you’re in charge.

Don’t go overboard. Keep it simple. I prefer an online project management tool where I can upload resumes. Or, track your candidates in Excel like I’ve done in one situation below:

Column headings worth mentioning include my opinions on the candidate’s experience and the status of where the candidate is in the pipeline:

Dropped out
Ignore
Maybe
Interested
Interviewed

And don’t forget a simple method for saving those resumes, too. The naming convention I use is Status_Resume_LastNameFirstName.pdf. If you use a Trello-like tool, this process takes care of itself.

The Hiring Process Will Evolve Over Time

I’m no expert in this area. But I also hate landing the wrong person for a role. So, the questions and abbreviated process I’ve outlined above are much better than it was ten years ago. And my process will keep improving in the future.

Try the questions and the ideas. Then, make them your own by improving upon the ideas outlined here. I’ll be anxious to hear about your results.