Hiring a controller? Answer these four questions before you start interviewing

Controllers provide critical financial oversight for your business, but recruiting the right candidate can be challenging.

Wage inflation, coupled with an ongoing deficit of new auditors and accountants joining the workforce, have continuously made for a tight financial labor market.

To increase your chances of finding and landing the right person quickly, it’s important to understand exactly why your business would benefit from a controller and what problems this individual would solve upon joining the organization.

Related: Strategies to find and hire controllers on a timeline

Four questions to ask before launching your controller search:

1. Is your current finance and accounting team struggling with a timely close, accurate numbers, etc.? In some cases, businesses need a controller to manage an existing finance and accounting team and ensure they have the support needed to reach their goals.
2. Is your business selling or going to sell in the near term? Recently acquired businesses will often hire an experienced controller to manage the integration or bring the finance and accounting team up to the new owner’s standards.
3. Are you growing the business through acquisition or other means? On the flip side, if your business is experiencing growth, especially inorganic growth, controllers will ensure that your finance operations can match the pace of new ventures.
4. Is there a risk your current controller will resign? Businesses that fail to create a succession plan for their current controller risk having to rush their backfill process or overload their finance and accounting teams.

With these questions in mind, you can tailor your target controller profile to the needs of your business.

For example, a business undergoing a private equity acquisition will often seek to hire a controller with private equity experience who understands the pace and demand needed to achieve their sponsor’s target goals.

Conversely, maybe your team doesn’t have any special needs and is simply looking to improve its finance and accounting department and month-end close.

In this case, it may be more beneficial to target controllers who would make a strong cultural fit with the organization.

Another important consideration when launching a controller search: compensation.

Wages are on the rise for finance and accounting leadership positions. According to our 2024 Controller Compensation Report, the average controller salary is now $192,000 with short-term incentive / management performance incentive bonuses hovering in the 20-25% range.

Additionally, more organizations have started offering long-term incentive compensation to make their controller packages competitive. Around 32% of the offers in our report included some form of long-term incentive pay.

The takeaway:

Controllers offer a unique set of skills to enhance a business’s finance and accounting department, but pinpointing the specific situations they will oversee in your organization will help ensure you can find and land the right person.

If you’re considering making this hire, review the state of your business, the makeup of your current finance and accounting function and your target compensation so you can hire someone who integrates seamlessly with your team.

To learn more, contact Ryan Morgan at (336) 217-9105 or ryan.morgan@charlesaris.com.