Are You Really the Ideal Finance Candidate?

by Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, 08 November 2011

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topics:
Human Capital Management Professional Development

tags:
business competency. CIMA business partnering finance function technical skills

In the report Finance Transformation: The evolution to value creation by CIMA, a survey of more than 4,500 finance and senior managers globally reveals that while an interplay of competencies is evident across all finance roles, the importance of different skill types varies markedly and is dependent on the survey respondent’s characteristics.

Thus, business skills become increasingly important as one moves from the types of duty with the lowest business orientation (general finance/accounting) to those with the greatest (where individuals see their work as directly relating to other functions/units). Similarly, business skills (as well as technical skills) are more important for the more senior finance roles, and are more comparable to the skill set required for senior non-finance personnel.

Organisations are showing that, where the ideal finance candidate cannot be sourced, there is a preference for recruitment of people with the necessary technical skills first. The organisation is prepared to then train and develop the recruit to obtain the requisite business and management skills.

MBAs Least in Demand

It is important to note that the shift in importance of the more business-centric skills has not led organisations to look to recruit business people and then train them into finance. It seems that the worldwide preference is for professionally qualified financial professionals first and foremost, though the interplay of skill sets cannot be ignored.

This is reinforced in relation to the types of training option the research looked at. Business post-graduate qualifications (such as MBAs) are the least in demand, deemed the least useful by both finance management and non-finance senior management when they recruit for their finance functions.

Of course, these skills are not just recruited into an organisation, and both business and technical competency can be developed via training in post.

Here, the attitudes of organisations appear to have a number of inconsistencies. It is notable, for instance, that while organisations view ‘learning through doing’ as being the most useful development and training activity, in practice, this is delivered to non-senior finance personnel much less often than its usefulness would indicate. This is also true of other training methods that are rated as useful.

Cost and the need for time off away from the day job clearly put many organisations off investing in training and development, particularly external training. Often, the less valuable but cheaper and quicker training tools or activities may be used where return on investment is pushed towards the bottom of the criteria.

There is also less enthusiasm among senior finance personnel for external education, including training for professional qualifications, than one might expect given the ongoing importance of technical competency.

However, there is also a large proportion of organisations buying these professional qualifications and skills at recruitment, rather than developing them in-house. Furthermore, respondents still rate external education (including for a professional qualification) as ‘important’, and building on the qualification through continuing professional development (CPD) is also seen as very valuable.

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