Why do our clients look to use interim expertise

Whilst industry experienced headcount freezes and private practice downsized during the last two years, the professional interim tax recruitment market has remained a strong performer. There are a number of reasons that companies have sought professional tax interims during this period.

Tax expertise when required

Temporarily bringing parts or all of the tax function in-house, Heads of Tax and CFOs have gained specific expertise to deal with project work without having to rely on costly external resources. During busy periods, such as year end or in relation to specific project work (such as VAT changes), interims have been relied on to efficiently bridge skills shortages at a relatively low cost. Whilst accountancy firms became more competitive in terms of offering secondees at a heavily discounted rate, this trend has reversed in recent months. The accountancy firms have experienced workloads picking up and no longer see offering secondees at a discount a viable alternative to redundancy.

Trials to bring tax in-house and testing cost savings

Tax has climbed the agenda for all sizes of company due to many governments becoming more robust in using tax as a way to recover national deficits. In consequence, finance heads have become increasingly enthusiastic about exploring whether bringing tax in-house results in a cost saving over external advisers and whether the workload warrants a full-time professional. We have advised a number of companies in bringing tax in-house, initially with a senior tax professional on an interim basis, and subsequently consulted on permanent hires. The inherent flexibility of an interim also means that they can be brought on full time after what is effectively a risk-free trial period.

Interims as a way to reduce risk on candidate selection

To increase the probability of a technical and cultural fit to an organisation, companies have been using interims on temporary or fixed term contracts as a way to judge technical ability and cultural fit, especially in junior professionals. Interims can be employed on a temporary/contract basis or on a fixed term. The risk of a sub-optimal hiring decision is removed with the professional ending the assignment at the company’s liking or after the expiry of the fixed term. Should the trial succeed, the candidate can be employed on a full-time basis. Around a third of interim professionals are subsequently taken on as permanent employees at the end of an assignment.