Casey Accounting & Finance Resources Recognized For Community Service



Cropped 6 x 4nch_color_logoArlington Resources/Casey Accounting & Finance Resources is proud to announce our team was recently recognized by Northwest Community Hospital (NCH) at their 2015 Friends of the Foundation Celebration!  For the last 4 years, we have held our annual CureSade 5k Run/Walk raising over $40,000 for the Cancer Patient Assistance Fund.  At the 2015 Friends of the Foundation Celebration on May 27, with approximately 375 guests in attendance, NCH wanted to share with everyone what a difference a company can make by organizing a community event, and to thank Arlington Resources for our commitment to the patients they serve.  Our CureSade 5k Run/Walk is a great team building event for our group and the day is always a lot of fun!

“Thank you again so very much for all that you and your colleagues do to support NCH and, most importantly, cancer patients we serve who find themselves in dire financial circumstances. Arlington Resources stands as a phenomenal example for other companies to emulate, and your team as shining stars to those whose lives they forever change.”
David Ungurean
Executive Director
Northwest Community Hospital Foundation

Our 5th annual CureSade 5k Run/Walk will be in Palatine, IL on Oct. 3.  Hope you can attend!  For additional information, please visit:  http://www.arlingtonresources.com/arlington-cares/

 

How to Turn Off a Top Candidate in an Interview

Years ago, hiring companies didn’t care so much about the candidate experience and about turning candidates off in the process. Now, however, the tides have turned and it’s become a candidate-driven job market. Today’s companies have to work harder than ever to attract top talent. Then, once they have them in person at an interview, employers must do their best to impress an outstanding candidate enough so that they will enthusiastically accept the job offer.

How can you know if you are impressing the best candidates or if you are simply turning them off? If you are having problems getting top talent to call you back or accept job offers, this could be a clear sign that your interviewing process has issues. Here are some ways you could be ruining your chances of hiring the best.

Making the application process far too complex and time consuming

One of the biggest pet peeves of candidates is that they are often forced to spend way too much time filling out job applications, taking online assessments, and answering pre-interview screening questions. An overreliance on applicant tracking systems leads to candidates who would rather walk away than go through the hassle.  If the candidate does “jump through all the hoops,” often weeks go by without any response from the company.  When this happens, the professionalism of the company is in jeopardy.

Being unprepared or disconnected during job interviews

When the candidate comes to your office for an interview, is the environment welcoming? There is nothing more annoying for a top candidate than to be shuffled into an interview room to face an unprepared and unprofessional interviewer. Reading through canned interview questions, not taking notes or talking about things of relevance with the candidate is recruitment suicide.

Requiring candidates to endure group interviews or coming back for multiple interviews

This can be a huge waste of time that many candidates will not put up with anymore. Make interviews straightforward, intimate, and focused on the outcome.  Try to schedule the candidate’s time effectively to meet with the key players at your organization on the same day.  A top candidate’s time is important, too.  Even worse, after the first interview the candidate does not get a response from the company, or the company calls him back many weeks later for another interview.

Doing all of the talking and asking all the questions during interviews

Another way that so many recruiters turn candidates off is by doing all the talking and not creating a dialogue. This is never a good idea. Don’t make the candidate feel like they are being interrogated in an interview. By creating a dialogue, you get to know your candidate better and the candidate gets to know the goals and mission of your organization, and how he/she can help you achieve these goals.

Rushing the candidate through interviews, form completion and background checks

Once you have a top candidate on board, don’t make the mistake of then rushing them through the hiring process. Respect that they will likely have to provide notice to their current employer, may need to relocate, and a whole slew of other responsibilities before they can come work for your company.

If you have noticed that some of these areas are a problem, take steps to correct your approach to hiring top talent. You’ll find that a staffing agency can also help to reduce losing good people.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs for jobs in Chicago and more. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

Behavioral Interview – Are You Ready?

Do you have a behavioral interview scheduled with a company that might hire you for an available position? If so, there is no reason to stress about the interview, or downright fear it either.

Many people worry about behavioral interviews, because they don’t know what to expect. Companies and recruiters are using behavioral interviews more often to determine which candidate might be the best for the available position. Why? Because past behavior could lead to future behavior.

Here’s some expert insight into behavioral interviews, so you can confidently handle them if and when they come up in your job search process.

What Happens During a Behavioral Interview?

You might be wondering what happens during a behavioral interview. First off, the interviewer will ask you to describe a situation in which you had to deal with a difficult co-worker who was not pulling their weight on a project or ask about another situation at a previous job. The interviewer will want you to explain the situation and how you handled it without generalizations or theorizing the issue. The interviewer will likely take notes, and you might not be able to discuss any stories you might have prepared.

How to Prepare for a Behavioral Interview

The next step here is to prepare for a behavioral interview as much as possible, in order to succeed the next time you have a job interview scheduled. The following steps are how you should prepare for a behavioral interview:

  • Think about past experiences that show leadership, teamwork, planning, education, customer service and more from your career.
  • Prepare to describe the situation, the action you took and how the situation came to a conclusion. An easy way to remember this is with the STAR acronym – situation, task, action and results.
  • Have short descriptions of each situation prepared, and have details ready in the event that the interviewer asks for them.
  • Make sure the outcome of the situation reflects positively on you, even if the overall outcome was negative.
  • Never generalize about these events. Be as specific as possible.
  • Never leave out any details, or embellish true ones, because the interviewer will be able to find out what is true and what is false.

Avoid Short Answers

Do your best to avoid giving interviewers short answers when taking part in a behavioral interview. Short answers give the impression that either you are not prepared, or you do not have any experience with the type of situation the interviewer is asking you about in your career. Both of these could lead the interviewer to remove you from consideration for the job, especially if the position requires you to handle tough situations with co-workers or subordinates. The more you offer in the answer, the better the interviewer can understand what type of worker and problem solver you have been in the past.

There is absolutely no reason to fear the behavioral interview, especially if you have had to deal with tough situations in the past. Just follow the tips above and you will shine in any interview.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

The Power of Networking!

Career advancement is not only about what you do, but even more importantly, who you know.  Having a strong network and nurturing it will help you take the next steps necessary to have a career that is challenging and gives you the opportunities for advanced roles in your career.

Networking is an art.  Dictionary.com’s definition of networking is:  “To cultivate people who can be helpful to one professionally, especially in finding employment or moving to a higher position”.  Wherever you are, talk to people who surround you and have a defined plan in place.

According to “Becoming a Master Networker” webinar by Amy Bingham, Bingham Consulting, follow this roadmap:

  1. Prepare – Conduct research on where like-minded people congregate, select ideal groups (in-person business meetings and social networking sites such as LinkedIn Groups).  Understand what is important to these groups, so you will be able to make contributions that are helpful to each group.
  2. Engage – Have a few good conversations with people and take good notes verses just collecting business cards.  Make sure people can understand in simple terms what you do when you introduce yourself and how they can help you.
  3. Position Value – Be able to articulate what makes you different and why people enjoy working with you and/or your company.  People need to understand how they will benefit.
  4. Assist – Networking is a two way street, so let the people you network with know you are looking for referral partners.  Find out what they do and how you might be able to assist them.  Be sincere and a good listener!
  5. Follow Up – Within 48 hours, follow up with the person’s referral as well as with the person who had helped you with your network and gave you the referral.
  6. Nurture – Stay in touch and share information that might be helpful to your network.  Examples would be hiring tips and thought leadership articles on their industry.  Use Google Alerts to obtain articles weekly and keep up to date on current trends.

Get started today in becoming a power networker!  The easiest way to begin is to make a list of all the people who can help you achieve the success you are looking for:  friends, co-workers, and groups you can join both online and in-person.  Make sure you know why each person and group is important to you.  Every opportunity that you meet a new person or even someone you have known for awhile, can turn into a powerful referral.  Think about your last job or the last item you purchased, was it through a referral?

How Do you Use LinkedIn to Find Great Accounting & Finance Candidates

On the prowl for quality finance and accounting candidates for your business? If you are like most recruiters, you are tapped into social media on a regular basis. Recent studies have shown that nearly 90 percent of all recruiters look to social media networks like LinkedIn to produce high-quality candidates both passive and active. In other words, LinkedIn can be a gold mine for any hiring manager.

So what is the secret to finding the best finance and accounting employees using LinkedIn? In the following article we will talk about ways to make the best use of LinkedIn and the staffing agencies that have a strong presence on LinkedIn for finding outstanding finance and accounting candidates.

1. Set up a branded presence as an employer of choice

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to create an employer Web page and or the profile of your recruitment team on LinkedIn. You’ll want to make sure that it is well branded with a positive look and feel so that financial and accounting candidates will be interested in learning more about you.

2. Create a company page with the latest financial jobs

Once you have developed your brand as an employer of choice, it’s important to create a central company recruitment page that features the latest financial jobs at your company. You can do this within LinkedIn or you can set up a page on your main company website with links to your LinkedIn job postings. Enable candidates the ability to apply for jobs using LinkedIn recruitment tools.

3. Use the advanced search feature on LinkedIn

Just like many social media networks, LinkedIn has a special advanced search feature built right in. Use this to search for financial and accounting candidates who meet certain criteria that your company is looking for. For example, you may want accounting and financial candidates who have at least five years of experience in the industry. Type in the word ‘mid-level’ as you search for a candidate of this status.

4. Connect with the best financial candidates via groups

High-performance financial candidates will likely be participating in industry groups on LinkedIn. You can either create your own groups on LinkedIn or you can become a follower of the most popular LinkedIn financial and accounting groups. Connect with candidates by sharing valuable content, job leads, and in commenting on the content of other participants. You can also follow specific financial and accounting thought leaders and then connect with the people in their networks.

5. Join accounting and finance groups for a variety of benefits

LinkedIn has done a great job of creating groups to connect like-minded people. Those groups provide outlets to learn a number from industry thought leaders. With people sharing similar interests in one area, that’s an easy way to connect to potential job candidates – both active and passive jobseekers. On top of those connections, you also can learn about the current topics in the industry from people on a local, regional or national scale.

Remember, LinkedIn can be a powerful way to find the best financial and accounting candidates in the industry. Use common courtesy and respect the people who use LinkedIn for networking purposes. If you have questions about hiring financial and accounting candidates, be sure to contact our network of recruiters in this space.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

How to Get Your Accounting and Finance Credentials Noticed on LinkedIn

It’s true that working in the financial industry takes a lot of hard work, a strong education, and outstanding finance credentials. But all of this doesn’t matter if your LinkedIn profile is not getting noticed by the right recruiters. Why? Because 90 percent of all hiring companies are checking out finance and accounting candidates on LinkedIn and other social media platforms before calling them in for interviews.

As a serious contender, you might have an excellent LinkedIn profile that may be updated all the time, but it could still be hard to get it noticed. Here, we will discuss how to get your finance credentials noticed on LinkedIn so you can secure a solid job within the industry.

Tell Recruiters Who You Are

Right off the bat, make sure you tell recruiters who you are so they do not have to guess what you do for a living. Use keywords related to your financial profession in your headline so it is picked up by search engines. The headline is the first part of your LinkedIn profile that recruiters notice, so make sure it counts.  Make sure you include your e-maill address, so it is easy for recruiters to reach out to you.

Validate All Claims Made on LinkedIn

If you make any claims about your financial background on your LinkedIn profile, be sure to validate all of them with strong recommendations. The recommendations should come from trusted sources, such as former employers, mentors, professors and co-workers who know you well and know your body of work. If you work independently in finance, you can acquire recommendations from clients.

Use LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform

LinkedIn offers a publishing platform that you should take advantage of if you want recruiters to notice your financial credentials. By writing articles and publishing them through LinkedIn’s publishing platform, you will be able to develop thought leadership within your industry. Make sure you write articles about your profession so recruiters who are looking for financial candidates can find your expertise on LinkedIn and then browse your profile.

Write a Top-Notch Summary

As with your headline, your summary on LinkedIn must include keywords related to the financial industry. If possible, write the summary in first person because it comes across better to recruiters. The summary should be no shorter, and no longer, than two sentences. After the two sentences, make sure the summary has a “proficient in” list that talks about your strongest skills.

Provide Examples

When writing a financial LinkedIn profile, make sure you provide examples of all claims made on your profile. For example, if you said you helped an employer save money, make sure the amount is mentioned in your profile. This helps recruiters understand what it is you accomplished at your job and how it helped the company. Also, write down how you saved the money in as descriptive a way as possible.

It is imperative that your LinkedIn profile is as strong as possible when searching for a financial job because it will help in the long run. Recruiters use LinkedIn more and more these days to find the best candidates, so be sure you follow the tips above to get noticed and invited to an interview.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

Top 10 Tips to Successfully Work with a Recruiting Firm to Find Top Talent for Your Organization

An uptick in business for a company means a few things: more work for full-time staff, more overtime hours to pay, and higher levels of stress for all employees. When a company experiences a busy period, it can be a good idea to partner with a recruiting firm. Why? A recruiting firm can help you hire temporary workers for flexible projects and part-time or full-time employees when new jobs become available.

Below, we will discuss the top 10 tips to successfully work with a recruiting firm that helps you find top talent in your industry.

1. Find a Diamond in the Rough

One of the biggest advantages of working with a staffing firm is that the recruiters there will be able to find your company a diamond in the rough while you focus on other responsibilities.

2. Hiring Managers Are Not Distracted

When your company partners with a staffing firm, your hiring managers are not distracted from their normal daily duties. They do not have to take time out of their day to sift through resumes and interview candidates who aren’t a match for the position.

3. Recruiting Firms Have Established Networks

With so many other responsibilities on their plates, human resources managers do not have time to keep their professional networks updated. Recruiting firms have networks established that they can pull from when jobs become available.

4. Recruiters Focus Attention on an Opening

When an opening occurs at your company, the recruiter will focus their attention on it, so the perfect candidate is found for the job.

5. Recruiters Find Pre-Qualified Candidates

Working with a staffing firm will save your company time and money because recruiters will find candidates who are pre-qualified for your opening and then send them your way.

6. Recruiters Provide Hard-to-Reach Candidates

A recruiting firm will provide a company with candidates who are hard-to-reach using various recruiting methods including networking, social media and use of an industry specific database, along with traditional methods such as posting job openings online, in forums or in newspapers.

7. Objective Look at Candidates

Recruiters will provide a company with an objective look at all of the candidates gathered for a job opening.

8. Recruiters Learn the Company

A recruiting firm will learn the ins and outs of the company it has partnered with so it knows what type of employees will excel there. They then try to match that information with top candidates.

9. Recruiters Represent Company Positively

A recruiting firm is an extension of the company, which means it will represent it positively in the job market so candidates know what type of organization they might be working for if offered a job.

10. Knowledge of Employment Laws

A popular benefit of working with a recruiting firm is the fact that certified recruiters know the updates to employment law in your area.When it comes time to fill an open job at your company, consider partnering with a recruiting firm to find the best talent out there today. Don’t leave things to chance.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

Testimonials About Casey Resources

Casey Resources has won Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year. Check out testimonials from some of Casey’s clients below that show how easy and great it is to work with our team!

“Not only have I used Casey personally over the last 27 years in seeking accounting positions, I have used their services for recruiting employees for the past 16 years I have worked at my present employer as Controller.   Casey doesn’t waste our time with individuals who don’t fit our needs.  They understand our company and our needs, and do better than any other employment agency I’ve worked with in making sure that candidates they send our way are a good fit.” 

Controller, International Manufacturer

 

“I’ve maintained a professional relationship with Casey for many years.  Always helpful and ready to respond to our needs.  Recent Casey recruit is working out well in our organization”.

Director of Finance, Health Care Industry

 

“On very short notice, they found a person to work with us on a temporary assignment that was perfect for the role in terms of skill set and cost.  They didn’t waste my time presenting candidates that weren’t appropriate and they followed up regularly to make sure the person was doing a good job and we were satisfied”.

Chief Financial Officer, National Engineering Firm

 

“Casey has done a great job for us.  I especially appreciate Casey taking time to explain the market, characteristics of the pool of available candidates, etc. for the jobs we need to fill.  We have been challenged with staffing for long term temporary assignments and Casey has been honest and up-front with their advice and has been spot-on!  Casey also returns my calls and e-mails promptly which is much appreciated.”

Human Resources Manager, Manufacturing and Distribution, Americas

Temporary and Contract Work Booming! 6 Reasons to Consider Temporary Employment

As the job market continues to recover from previous unemployment rates, it appears that temporary and contract work is booming. Why is this? Employers are more willing to take on temporary employees as a way to find great employees and quickly fill staffing requirements while still maintaining employee skill sets. Temporary work is also an excellent option for those who are in between jobs or looking to gain career experience in a new organization.

Here, we will discuss the reasons why you should consider temporary employment and how you can benefit from this arrangement.

Learn New Skills

A temporary job is an excellent way for you to learn a new skill, especially if you need that new skill for a full-time job for which you wish to apply down the road. The new skill could be technical, physical or in the leadership field. Simply watching others around you in all of the temporary jobs you work will help you pick up on some new things you can leverage when applying for jobs elsewhere.

Flexibility of Scheduling

Flexibility is a key benefit of working temporary employment. Those who work in temporary jobs will find it very easy to arrange their schedule. This means that when you need to take time off, you can take a break in your career. As a temporary worker, you do not have to file a request with your employer for time off. Instead, you simply do not schedule another job to start until after your schedule is open again.

Make a Life Transition Easier

Life transitions, such as moving to a new state, are very difficult for some people to make successfully. Working temporary jobs can make a life transition easier for some. A temporary job will help a newly relocated person learn the culture of the area, learn what the job environment is like and much more. This will make it easier to accept a full-time job down the road because you will know what to expect on the job.

Temporary Often Leads to Regular Full-Time Position

It is quite possible that a temporary job could turn into a regular full-time position one without you even knowing it. Some companies hire temporary workers with the goal of keeping them on full-time if you are a good culture fit with the organization. The thing is, the company does not always know an opening will come up, so the employee will not know that this is a possibility. This is why you must put your best foot forward as a temporary worker.

Increase Your Network

Why not meet some new career contacts while earning a paycheck? If you love to network, temporary employment is an excellent way to do it. By working at a new company every couple of months, you will be able to add countless new people to your network. This will help improve your chances of landing a regular full-time job.

Earn Respect Within the Industry

An excellent way to earn respect within the industry is by working temporary jobs. You not only meet scores of new people, but you also build a reputation within the industry as a hardworking temporary employee. For all you know, a former temporary employer might contact you in the future for a full-time job.

There are plenty of reasons why you should work temporary jobs these days and we only touched the surface of them above. Find out more by connecting with the accounting recruitment specialists at Casey Resources.

Temporary Or Direct Hire: How Should You Fill Your Vacant Position?

When there are open jobs to fill, and not enough suitable candidates around — companies often find it difficult to make a decision on how they will conduct their recruitment.

Do they make a direct hire or do they hire a temporary worker?

What are the differences and advantages of hiring temps vs. direct hires?

A direct hire will become a regular, full-time member of your staff, while a temporary worker will have a brief contract to work at your company. Which is better for your company? Make the determination after reading through the following article:

Making a Direct Hire

Companies that want to make a direct hire usually know how much time and money is involved in this move. If your company has just one or two open jobs to fill, it might make more sense to make a direct hire. If the open jobs are for top-level management, sometimes a temporary employee can fill in until the right candidate is hired to give you more time to make the best decision. When it comes to filling lower level, non-manager jobs, the company needs to weigh some pros and cons before making a hiring decision. Often, temp employees make better sense.

If your company needs to fill long-term jobs, then a direct hire is the best option. Often, companies will receive more loyalty and commitment from direct hires compared to temporary workers. Another benefit of making a direct hire is that companies will be approached by higher levels of talent compared to searching for temporary workers. This means that companies will be able to recruit talent who are currently working, which increases the number of candidates available to interview for the position when making direct hires.

Some cons of making direct hires include the time spent interviewing candidates and the investment required. Direct hires need to go through a vigorous interview process and if hired, need to be provided benefits and other perks from the company. Should the direct hire not work, the process begins again for the company. The lengthy hiring process can be a hindrance, so the quickness and speed of getting a temporary employee in place can be very beneficial when you need someone to work right now.

Making a Temporary Hire

When short-term jobs need to be filled at companies, it is a better idea to make a temporary hire. The main benefit of hiring a temporary worker is that their contract length is flexible. You tell the staffing firm how long you need an employee and the contract comes to an end when you say. It can be for, one week, one month, a couple of months, or a year.

Temporary workers are excellent for companies that need to increase and decrease their staffing levels quickly. For example, peak periods occur during various times of the year depending upon your business, so being able to “right size” your staff for these peak periods, gives your company more flexibility.

An excellent benefit of hiring a temporary worker is the fact that companies can bring them on full time if they succeed in what they do, fit within the culture and go above and beyond their job duties. The company does not need to tell the employee they are being evaluated for full-time work, which makes the situation even better.

The bottom line here is that companies need to make the final decision on which type of candidates to hire for their open jobs based on their needs at the time.

Casey Resources provides a number of services for clients and candidates to be successful in their job search. Contact a leading staffing firm in Chicago to learn more  today.