Road from CPA to Recruiter with Jack Kalb

Hello, and welcome to the Big Four Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Jack Kalb, co-founder and partner at Minted Search Group, an awesome recruitment firm here in Canada, and a couple of people that I'm collaborating with actually on an upcoming Canadian salary guide, so I'm excited about that. Welcome to the pod, Jack. Thank you so much, Dom. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. So we've been speaking for a little while, there's been some kind of collaboration between Big Four Transparency and Minted, and we've been trying to figure out what exactly that'll look like, and it's not until recently, actually, that you kind of explained to me the story of how you became a recruiter, because you're actually a CPA yourself, and you have some experience in the accounting firm, so I'm kind of curious to hear that journey and how you got to where you are today. Sure. I began my career at EY, I was in that private company services group there. I got the internship out of school, took my full-time offer there, was focused mainly on audit and assurance, and I think it was in 2017, an opportunity was presented to me to join the campus recruiting team on a secondment. For three months, I was going around to different schools around Ontario, representing EY, talking to potential co-ops and interns, running the interview process, so that was my first venture into recruitment. From there, I really, really enjoyed it, so I was trying to assess how I could use my public accounting knowledge in the recruitment space, external out of EY, and after finishing my CPA designation, I was able to get a job at a larger recruitment agency, where, to my surprise, the focus of their recruitment practice was public accounting recruitment, so it was a really, really nice fit and transition for me. And then, after a few years there, I did leave, and with my former boss, we started our own company called Minted Search Group, we focus on public accounting recruitment. Okay, awesome. And what was it about that placement that you did in campus recruitment that made you kind of realize or decide that, like, this is it, this is what I want to do? I really enjoyed the interaction with the students in that moment, I mean, I felt like I was doing it well, I felt like I was successfully representing EY in a positive way, I was having really interesting conversations, it kept me on my toes, I think it utilized my skill set really nicely, I obviously also knew what I was talking about from what the job looks like and what it entails, so I just believe that I combined everything that I knew with some of my more key personality traits and really, really just enjoyed those interactions. Nice, that's cool to hear. And then why'd you end up kind of like in an external recruitment, like, search firm after that, rather than kind of like an internal recruiter? Because I know that the big four firms have these kind of like large departments that do nothing but recruiting, right? Yeah, I mean, I think internal recruiting can be a really great career path for a lot of recruiters. For me, I didn't know what the career trajectory looked like in an internal recruiting team. What drove me to look for external recruiting opportunities was, I feel like it was more of a sales-oriented type of position, where the growth and learning was more like uncapped, rather than still being with a pretty structured and robust organization. And your performance was an indication of how you could grow in external recruitment rather than internal. I felt it was more correlated, more directly with that. I never really considered internal recruiting as a career path, to be honest. Interesting. Yeah, I feel like it makes a lot of sense for small places. I'm always curious about like for large organizations, because it feels a lot like kind of you're a sales rep without a commission plan or, you know, where you're mostly based, maybe there is some variable incentive, but it doesn't seem like it's very much. Whereas, again, external recruitment, you really get to kind of like go out there and chase and be incentivized to do whatever it is that will benefit you and build out that network and take on new initiatives, right? Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think both internal and external have their pros and cons, just like everything else. Some people really excel in an internal recruiting role and like representing that one company all the time. For me, I just wanted to, I felt like my learning was going to advance more if I went externally. And so as an external recruitment professional in the world of public accounting, I'm kind of curious for your take on a couple of things, because I feel like the reputation of external recruiters, particularly in the world of public accounting, is not very good. I think a lot of people have had very negative experiences and, you know, particularly discussions on like Reddit, Fishbowl and stuff like that. A lot of people will just like adamantly refuse to deal with an external recruiter or have had these negative experiences. And I'm curious to know, like, why do you think that that's the case? Like, why do you think that people have such a negative sentiment towards external recruiters in this industry? I think it's it's probably twofold. The first probably being, you know, I think a lot of recruiters tend to forget that we're dealing with people and dealing with their lives. So there's a lot of unfair pressure put on candidates looking for a job by recruiters. You know, the approach I typically take is understanding what someone needs and and really trying to find something for them that aligns with what they're telling me. But my outlook is I'm only here to present opportunities that I think will benefit you based on what you're telling me. But I'm at a third party. I've met you for 10 minutes. You know, if it doesn't sound like something that's for you, you're the one that knows your life the best and your goals the best. So I think sometimes recruiters lose sight of that, that we should just be here to try and help people. And at the end of the day, it's their decision. It's their life. And we move on if it doesn't go the way our recruiters would want it to go. That's that's the first piece. The second piece is I think sometimes in this recruiting space, recruiters either don't know the industry that well or don't focus on something so super, super specific, which can lead to, you know, mismanagement or misinformation for candidates when they're applying to different jobs that can end up in, you know, less, you know, poor results or, you know, some or the recruiter didn't set the expectations properly for the for the candidate and then result in them being disappointed with the process. Mm hmm. Very much a recurring topic on here that like, you should deal with people who are niched down as much as possible, because they can really offer you just like a service that would be so much better. And they have such an unfair advantage doing what it is they do. What would be like a key difference of like, you know, if I'm looking for a new job working with you, who is a CPA, right, like versus working just with whoever who's who maybe has like no knowledge industry? Like, how does that make a big difference? I think the difference is twofold for both our clients and our candidates. You know, when I speak to a candidate, for me personally, I very quickly can understand what they're doing, what they're going through, what their needs are. If it makes sense for them to move, you know, there's a lot of times where I hear, you know, candidates tell me what they're looking for, or what they're doing and why they want to move. And a lot of the time, I have to tell them that I actually think they have it really, really good where they're at. And I would advise them not to move somewhere. And I think I can do that because I know the space really well. And I know what they're doing really, really well. On the flip side, because I know the public accounting space well, and our company, I would say 85% of our business is public accounting recruitment. You know, we know what our clients' needs are, and we know how to put the pieces together when it comes to matching the right candidate with the right company so that there's a mutually beneficial relationship for both parties. So just knowing the types of jobs there are, the market, the firms, and matching them with the right people, I think is beneficial for both. Interesting. And then for people who might be even just curious about the world of recruiting, but aren't ready to make that jump, do you think that that campus recruitment experience that you got with the Big 4 firm was a good reflection of what the reality of being a full-time recruiter is? Do you think that that's a real taste of what the job is? I don't think so, to be honest. I mean, especially with the Big 4, it's a lot of, for me at least, it was a lot of people that already know your brand, they already recognize who you are, there's already that outlook of EY and the Big 4 and people applying to you, where our job a lot of the time is helping the companies that might not have their name out there as much as the Big 4. So a lot of my time in the campus recruitment team was attending and networking sessions for students, for co-ops, being physically present, screening resumes, conducting a whole day of interviewing, whereas this job now is way more active recruitment for candidates and for clients. And who is it that you think should consider recruitment, particularly from the accounting stream? So that's most of who's listening, right? But a lot of people, I don't think, necessarily give this a fair shot. They go, I'm not liking my public accounting experience, I need to go to industry. And there's obviously a ton more than that. And I think my first industry experience was not what I hoped for. And from a personality perspective, I feel like recruiting might have been a good avenue, but you never even hear about that. You never even... That was not a consideration for me at all. So yeah, who's the person who should be looking for recruitment as a potential avenue? Yeah, I mean, I think to take a step back, it's interesting you say that because I feel like a lot of people who end up in recruitment maybe never thought they were going to actively seek a recruitment role. You know, it's not like you graduate from university and you want to be a lawyer and go to law school, right? You have a plan or follow the CPA and be an accountant. I think for people who want to explore a job in recruitment are the people who maybe want to utilize their expertise in a specific industry, right? It can be accounting. It could be engineering. It could be law and use that expertise in a different way just because I feel like that will give them a leg up on recruitment for that specific industry themselves because they have so much deep knowledge of what it looks like. Obviously, personality becomes very important. You know, you have to be someone who likes talking to people, likes networking, is okay with getting rejected a lot of the time from different avenues, from clients, from candidates and I think having that tenacity and perseverance is really important in your personality to be successful in recruiting. Okay, I like it and I also think that that goes a long way almost no matter where you're going, right? With what I'm doing with Big Four, transparency has been huge. Even my time in Big Four as a co-op student and stuff, I was trying to do new initiatives and be like, oh, why don't we host this event at the office and all that and being a little bit daring like that is a really good exercise and yeah, if you find yourself being really, really good at that, then maybe recruitment, something like business development, kind of like that type of world might be good for you. Yeah, I mean, for me personally, it was, I didn't see the traditional accounting path as something that was appealing to me and it's amazing when it is for people, right? Like it's great to go into an SFA role or a controller role and work your way up in that way. If that's your goal, that's fantastic. For me, I just, I never saw that for me and I wanted to find something that utilized my skill set in a different way. Okay, I like it. One question I like to ask that's almost more for me than for the audience sometimes, because I'm always very, very interested in this, but what did it take to get the recruitment business that you have up and running at Minted and how long did it take until it felt like this was like, okay, this is like a steady, solid business, like we're good? I mean, I think I need to give a lot of credit to my business partner, Stephen Lecker. Stephen had been working in recruitment for probably over 12 years when I was introduced to him. So I think for our success, we really had to leverage his relationships in the space initially and to this day, but as time goes on, obviously, I've developed my own network and my own relationships. But when we took that jump to start Minted Search Group, I really got to give credit to Stephen because he is a go-getter and he can create relationships and I was really reliant on him to help us start it. Nice. And I imagine like recruitment, probably not a super high cost to entry business, right? I've tried various forays into that world with Big Four Transparency and I'm really happy with where we're at now with just having the talent pool and not, at one point, we were trying to do one-way interviews and do this whole thing. But everything does seem very approachable to just start, which is quite nice, right? I imagine there wasn't this huge obstacle you needed to overcome to be able to do it. No, not really. I think the most challenging thing is putting your name out there in the market, being a trustworthy source for potential clients. The barriers to entry and recruitment are really those relationships, more so than any capital requirements or specific technology, anything like that. It is a low capital business, but it's also challenging from the relationship piece. Yeah. And what have been the best ways for you to develop those relationships? Are there specific events that you would recommend or just being proactive on social media? I'm curious to know what works best. I think it's a mix of everything. I think you got to try different ways of meeting people and in different capacities. A lot of our success has come from existing relationships and just consistently caring for our clients, for their needs, being present with them, and showing them that we are people that are honest and trustworthy and transparent so that they continue wanting to work with us and being genuine with our efforts. And if you're a nice person and a hard worker, it snowballs into other relationships, I think. But I wouldn't say there's one specific thing that has allowed us to expand those relationships. It's more like a combination of the work itself, as long as your time in the recruiting world. And so you've been a recruiter since 2018, and the landscape for accounting talent has evolved massively since 2018. So I'm curious, as someone with your perspective, what do you think has really changed there? If I'm a candidate with a CPA or any kind of professional designation, what's changed in my job-seeking time today versus back when you started recruiting? I mean, what's changed drastically in the last few years is salaries. And obviously, you know that, and you can see that as well from the work you're doing. So salaries have gone up drastically in accounting. I think firms have realized that they needed to maybe make a little bit more lucrative to keep up with the competition, as well as attract people to work in public accounting. The demand for public accountants keeps increasing. It's not slowing down. I think the salaries have been a really drastic change for candidates, as well as firms starting to open up to the idea of remote work and how important that is for people, not only in public accounting, but across various industries. I think as time progresses, the more firms are approaching us and asking us to do more and asking us how we would potentially structure a hybrid work environment, which I think can be really beneficial for candidates as they look for different options within the public accounting world. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah, no, it's really nice to know from someone like you who does so much volume, right? It's very easy to know anecdotally, like, oh, yeah, I'm getting more DMs through LinkedIn, right? But you're the actual person doing the recruitment and you deal with so many people. So you get a much better sense of how competitive it is to get an accounting professional to come work where you are, right? So yeah, it's really cool to hear it from you specifically. It's very competitive right now for firms. Getting good talent is not easy. And I think that's why we're here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's nice. It's a good thing for the profession as a whole. And like you said, it does drive firms to consider how they can be more profitable so that they can then be competitive in the talent landscape. Because I think for too long, from my perspective anyways, there's been all of these like kind of small independent firms who just like, you know, people, people post about it online a lot, like, they'll be like, is this a joke, right? And it'll be like some firm out there trolling for like a controller. And they're like, yeah, we're paying you $55,000 a year, and you need to have 10 years of experience. And like, unbelievably, like, people would sometimes end up taking those jobs. And so like, it's good to see that there is some pressure being put and like, you know, people are kind of getting more what they're worth, which is good, because I think for a long time, the accounting industry was like, a tough place to be like, there's a lot of wage stagnation and stuff like that. And, and, you know, it's no wonder to me that there are these talent pipeline issues. So it's good to see that there is some budge where like, things are moving in the right direction for the accounting profession. Yeah, I do think it goes deeper than, you know, what firms are willing to offer. Right. You know, I think there's a lot of information out there that the amount of graduates in accounting from Canadian universities have also been has also been decreasing, right. So that's definitely adding to the to the demand and to the pressure of, of finding good talented accountants to join firms. But it is, it has been nice to be able to speak with our clients or firms directly in a collaborative way to advise them on what we see the trends being within the public accounting beyond compensation, right. So flex time off or the remote work or any additional benefits that candidates might be getting from, from their competitors, you know, that type of that type of conversation. Yeah, and I imagine probably more than ever, like work life balance and stuff like that is probably like a huge recruitment tool, right? Like a lot of people probably leaving the larger firms, looking for maybe a smaller practice are probably hoping to regain that work life balance as well, right? Yes, but I think it's, I think work life balance is actually an interesting topic in itself. And it's something that we toss around pretty loosely without knowing exactly what we mean. Because if someone approaches you, a candidate approaches you about work life balance, you know, maybe a lot of recruiters will say, this is going to be way better work life balance as a selling point. That being said, because I come from public accounting, I can tell you that two things really impact your work life balance. Number one is the person you work for. So the manager on the file, the partner on the file, and you know, their style, are they giving you a lot of review notes? Do they want you to come in on Saturdays? That's number one. And number two is the client you're on. So if you get an easy client, maybe there's less work, maybe they're very organized, your hours are going to inherently be less, right? So as a third party, I don't know every single client that my clients have, I don't know who you're going to be reporting into. So I can't promise a work life balance to the T, right? I can ask approximately the hours that you probably will work for the peak of busy season. Or if you're working on public companies in a big four rather than private companies at a midsize firm, it's probably going to be better. But it's not, it's not something that you can 100% guarantee for somebody. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think that's where like, it's really nice to be able to like network, do some of your own research. Like there's a lot of platforms where, like, again, like we personally, like, big four transparency collects data on like approximate hours worked. So you can get like this objective data. But like, there's all these discussions happening on forums as well of like, hey, I might go work here, like, can a senior on this file, like, let me know how it is. And I think it's important for people to do their research. And then also just have real discussions with your recruiter, right? Like tell them what matters most to you, because I'm sure you have, you know, you have some sense of where things are at with certain firms. And obviously, there's room for misrepresentation from the firm to you, which is what makes it tricky. But like, I think it is a combination of like, do your own research. But also like, it is a good idea to work with a recruiter because like, you know, you know some stuff, we've had some conversations, you're very passionate about what you do. And so that shines through into being very knowledgeable about the space. So yeah, well, well, it's important for us to also keep up with the people that we help put in firms so that we know what other expectations we can communicate in the future. Right. So if I know a firm, you know, they work longer in tax season, that's something I can communicate so I don't mislead anybody. right. So even though work-life balance is hard to gauge you can there's definitely some information that we have to help people further. Yeah, changing gears just a little bit but I want to at least have you be able to kind of put your two cents on this but for candidates who are looking for a job what should they consider in terms of like them dealing with a recruiter like what's your advice to them to get the most out of their relationship and their experience with a recruiter. I mean I think it is important to gauge if the recruiter you're working with knows about the space you're dealing with right. First and foremost you want someone who can give you honest feedback and direction about where you should go. So if maybe on their LinkedIn you see that they do tech recruiting and accounting recruiting or some people might be amazing at it. I don't want to diminish their value but they might not know specifically what your worth is or you know what's best for you. Ultimately also at the end of the day I think when you're talking to a recruiter maybe they should reflect on the conversation and do a gut check to see if the person you're speaking with is someone you will connect with and want to collaborate with because at the end of the day it's a very collaborative relationship for both parties and you want to make sure that that person you're working with you're connecting with them in a certain way that will allow you to succeed as you move through the interview process. I think it's a little bit more subjective than anything else to be honest. It's who you connect with, who you click with. Yeah and I mean that makes a lot of sense right. It's like the more honest conversations you can have the more you can open up and the more you can like see yourself in that person kind of thing. I think the better your experience is going to be and I will say like the only recruiter relationships that I've had that I feel like have been positive have been with people who I feel like are kind of like me and personally it has been people with accounting experience as well which has been huge. That was kind of like a criteria for me where I wouldn't really like consider people who hadn't worked in the space and so that's kind of what I think to me made you really interesting to speak with is like you're a CPA like you've done it you've probably gotten all the recruiter inbound too and now you're on the other side of it and like you have like a real opportunity to be like hey here are the things I liked and didn't like and so like let's do this properly right which is really good for the industry. So yeah I'm happy to see that. I mean I can definitely talk about my experience but I was never a great accountant so that's probably part of the reason why I left. Yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean if it's not what you love to do you know it's it's gonna be a lot harder for you in general so that's totally reasonable. Okay and then I have one last question as well just in general from like looking at so many applicants what's something that most accounting professionals are doing wrong when they're looking for a job that like that they should change or address? What are they doing wrong? That's a tough one. I honestly I don't know. I think they've got to make sure that the places they're applying are relevant to their skill set. You know I think a lot of the disappointment that comes from for candidates who apply online are probably because they might just be applying to as many jobs as possible without really tailoring the resume making sure that the job is you know in line with their experience. So probably focusing their search and coming coming to a meeting with a recruiter or an interview with a very specific focus on what they want I think is important. I also think sometimes I would encourage people to do is have conversations with their current employer before applying to many jobs and to talking with recruiters because if you have that conversation before you apply if you have the conversation before you talk to a recruiter you might not need to be looking for a job. You know a lot of positive might come from that you might learn that you're getting promoted or getting a raise or they can make you work from home another day a week. So if you've already had that conversation and then it doesn't go the way you want it to go then you can apply and approach recruiters because now you have at least a clear direction of what you need to be doing. And I feel like a lot of people are scared to have that conversation which maybe they're in an environment that doesn't foster a collaborative two-way you know open communication policy which I understand. But I think the first thing you should be doing is trying to have those internal conversations before seeking external help. I like that and you know a lot of people complain about like the counter offer they get and they're like listen it's already too late. So I think this is like a good way of you know inviting that action inviting like hey like what can you do before it is kind of too late or before you have to choose between which bridge you're going to burn right. Because if you're taking that counter offer whoever offered you that other job is probably not going to offer you another one. And similarly in that way you know in my opinion when you approach your current employer with a counter offer although they might want to or with an offer that you got externally although they might offer you to stay I do think the nature of your relationship has shifted in some way right. You know whether you think so or not now that person knows that you were looking externally without coming to them first. And I think the relationship could be the same and move forward well but I do think now there's something has come up which will inherently change the nature of your relationship in some capacity. Yeah yeah and then like firsthand I can attest to that advice too like I've had jobs that I've left after months and months of discussion of like hey I'm not happy for so and so reason and like those are still great relationships and then I have some jobs that I left where I just said hey here's my three weeks I'm out and I don't talk to those people anymore right. So if it is kind of like a relationship that you want to foster even if you don't see the purpose for it right away like later down the line you might really be like oh damn like I wish I had done things differently. So I think it is very much like worthwhile trying to preserve those relationships. Yeah exactly that's great advice. Every relationship you have is important. Yeah you never know you never know what it's gonna become at some point. Yeah yeah yeah I agree. Well thank you so much for joining Jack. I'm going to link your newsletter as well. I forgot to mention that at the beginning but you have a weekly newsletter full of great insights if you're looking for kind of your next job and just in general if you want to be informed about how to do your job search. So I'm going to make sure I link that. Hopefully our joint salary guide Big Four Transparency Minted Canadian Salary Guide will be out in time so I'm going to look to link that as well. I'll just make sure I link all your socials as well and if you know if you're looking to have a conversation a good conversation in the space Jack's a great guy. I would recommend it. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate your time. Thanks for having me.