The task of engaging and developing the future leaders of the Accounting and Finance functions was challenging yet exciting to take on. As the candidate market for Accounting and Finance professionals became more scarce in the Greater Chicago Area, the business wanted a new way to engage new talent and expedite their development. To solve this business problem, I developed a rotational development program that would address the challenges and yield the desired results. For this program, I amalgamated with the CFO and his direct reports to get the program approved and launched. In order to achieve the desired results for this program, we created a set of criteria a university and its students had to meet for recruitment purposes. Some of the criteria that were established were:
* Strong reputation for their business college
* Selective admission requirements into the university and the business college
* A diverse student population
* A favorable ratio of in-state vs out-of-state students
* A favorable ratio of students obtaining out of state jobs
After reviewing university statistics and meeting with university officials, the company selected Michigan State University to be the exclusive recruitment source of candidates for this program.
To learn more about the business challenges and my contributions to the project, I encourage you go through the document listed below.
One of the business challenges the company was facing was the lack of well-rounded Accounting and Finance professionals inside the organization. The internal pool was made up of very strong analysts; however, they had become siloed as a result of their experience being focused in one area. The Rotational program was designed to rotate its members through three different functional areas with the goal of providing them with a better business perspective. Below is the program description that describes the various rotations and responsibilities program participants were responsible for.
In order to attract candidates that would end up being successful, a partnership with interview EDGE was formalized and a program committee was also created. The committee members were made up of cross-functional business leaders to help us identify competencies that would yield success. Once the competencies were identified an interview guide was developed to ensure we were asking the Right questions. During the interview process, each interviewer was assigned a competency to probe on and a set of questions to help guide the conversation.
Once competencies were identified, a performance standards guide was developed that described specific behaviors for each competency in order to set expectations with program participants. This allowed managers and participants to be aligned on what was expected of them. The performance standards guide is shown below if you wish to learn more.
Also part of the rotational program but not mentioned in the documents above, a formal mentoring program was created and implemented. The program participants were paired up with a mentor to assist them with the transition from college to the real world, help them gain sufficient business knowledge to be successful with the organization.