Tax season is right around the corner.
Will you need to hire tax preparers for the 2015 season?
Why risk hiring someone with bad habits when you can recruit and train your own preparers the right way? Training your own staff is cost effective and increases your chances of hiring a loyal staff that will work for you for years to come.
The Key to Growth is Good People
You can’t do it by yourself – you need good people with excellent people skills that you can rely on. Finding good people is the first step – they don’t need to know tax preparation because that can be taught. You’ll need to find people looking for a seasonal career who have the following skills:
- Experience in tax preparation (optional)
- People Skills
- An aptitude for learning
- The availability to work throughout the tax season
- A positive attitude
- Motivated to succeed
The best candidates are usually:
- Early retirees
- Military retirees
- Financial services professionals
- People with complimentary seasonal employment
- Moonlighting professionals
- College seniors or graduate students
- Blue collar workers
Where to find Candidates
Finding good candidates can take time so don’t wait until the last minute. Here are eleven great places to prospect for tax preparer candidates:
- Let friends and relative know you are looking for prospects
- Ask employees to refer people they know who are looking for new opportunities
- While you are out and about, take notice of friendly sales people and leave your card with them.
- Online job boards are always a great place to post.
- You can try placing a Help Wanted Ad in your local newspaper.
- Make sure you post the positions you are hiring for on social media.
- Employ the help of a temp agency.
- Outplacement services.
- Women and senior groups are great places to contact for potential candidates.
- Be sure to notify your local colleges and career schools.
- The military.
Training and Screening Candidates
The pitfalls with hiring and screening applicants are the same no matter what industry you work in. Applicants who sometimes look good on paper and do well in the interview can turn out to be a bad fit for your office. In a seasonal industry, this can be a huge downfall as finding new preparers in the beginning of tax season is challenging. This is why creating your own tax school is an excellent way to take in income as a school and easily screen potential candidates. You’ll get to work with students and see firsthand their personalities and aptitudes and then hand pick staff from your students.
The Benefits of running a tax school are:
- You can ensure that you will have an ample staff of qualified seasonal preparers.
- Candidates pay you to become qualified.
- You have the ability to screen candidates before hiring by observing behavior and attitude, attendance and punctuality, personal grooming, response to authority, communication skills, and tax course grades.
- You will develop a rapport that continues in the workplace.
- Your tax preparers will be more knowledgeable
- You will be able to provide in-house continuing education for advanced tax training, small business tax training and tax law updates.
Download our Whitepaper: Tips for Training Staff Before Tax Season
Running Your Own Tax School
The Income Tax School has an easy, affordable, turnkey package with everything you need to train people who want to become tax preparers. We provide materials for online training or live training in a classroom. Your training kit includes:
- Operations Manual (how to plan, organize, and run your school)
- Instructor Kit with tax course materials
- Student Kit with tax course materials
- Marketing materials (optional)
Learn more about our tax-training program