Finding the right CFO for your company or brand can be challenging. Usually it’s necessary to hire a recruiter to help fill financial jobs, and you want to be sure that the recruiter you hire truly understands your brand and how the role of CFO is customized to your specific needs.Interestingly enough, many senior level executives have spent time working with recruiters before, so there’s often a high degree of mutual understanding between all parties.
First, it helps to clarify what a CFO does. CFO stands for Chief Financial Officer. Most CFO’s have worked a portion of their careers as CPAs (Certified Public Accountants) or other financial jobs; each state has it’s own licensing board for CPAs. The average salary for a CPA runs about $70,000, which is substantially higher than audit, accountant and bookkeeping clerks, who average closer to $36,000. Financial analysts, meanwhile, make closer to $75,000. As you can see, there are many other jobs in accounting and finance before you reach the executive management jobs.
At the executive level, it’s no longer all about crunching numbers. Statistics tell us that CFO’s spend more than half their time in meetings, so communication and listening skills are also of primary importance. Keen analyzation skills are also paramount, since CFO’s are basically corporate officers responsible for assessing risks, as well as financial planning and keeping of accurate records.
Becoming a CFO is often the end-goal of a career in financial management, and as a result, those in CFO positions have held a number of lesser financial jobs. Competition is fierce at the top rung, but finding the right Chief Financial Officer is not a task to be taken lightly – the winning candidate must understand the company in question from a number of complex vantage points and be able to make conservative, less-popular decisions in the name of longevity.
