The Accounting Talent Shortage Isn’t Why Your Search Stalled
A colleague recently asked me a familiar question, one I hear from almost everyone in this industry: how big is the US finance and accounting talent shortage, really? I understand why that’s the first question. It’s the easiest one to measure. But across the searches Cobalt runs for US real estate, investment and development firms, the numbers turn out to be the smallest part of the problem. I see it every week on my own desk. The numbers explain why the pool is smaller. They don’t explain why a fully qualified candidate can sit in a search for months, or why the offer that wins is rarely the highest one. That’s the part of the shortage that’s been sitting in plain sight.
Where the Accounting Talent Pipeline Actually Breaks
Start with supply. By spring 2025, accounting program enrollment had rebounded 12.4% year over year to its highest level since 2020, a sign the pipeline might start refilling a few years out. The people who do qualify usually walk straight into Big Four audit, one of the toughest training grounds in the profession, and plenty of them don’t stay long enough to become the candidate every client says they want. Public accounting firms were losing around 15% of their people a year as of 2024, most of it voluntary, and the same three reasons keep coming back in roughly equal measure: salary, burnout, and a work-life balance that never quite arrives. Most of them don’t even leave accounting. They leave the firm that burned them out, for one that won’t.
None of that is in dispute. It’s public data. What it doesn’t explain is why a search for that same qualified profile can still stall for months even when candidates exist. That’s not a supply problem. That’s what happens next.
Why Do Candidates Accept Another Offer Mid-Process?
None of this shows up as a headline. It shows up in small moments that are easy to miss unless you’re the one on the phone. A candidate mid-process will text me: I just accepted another offer. It’s rarely about the company. It’s that another firm offered what mattered most to them, one extra remote day, a number that felt safer, and it got there first.
How Long Should a Finance and Accounting Search Take?
Here’s what nobody puts a number on. Roughly 60% to 70% of the placements on my desk right now are growth roles, not backfill, which changes who a client is competing against, not just how many candidates exist. Clients typically spend two to three weeks searching in-house before a search even reaches us. That’s usually where the lost month goes. From first interview to offer, three to four weeks is normal. Much past that, and a strong candidate has usually moved on.
Candidates know it too. They are getting fifty messages a day. Whoever moves first usually wins. Every week an employer spends deciding whether it can flex is a week a faster process is closing the same candidate, and when that search falls through, it usually gets filed as “the market’s too tight” instead of “we were too slow.” That’s a timing problem wearing a numbers problem’s clothes.
When the Brief Is Right: A VP of Accounting Hire in Dallas
None of this is beyond fixing, and where a client is willing to invest in getting the brief right, it shows immediately. In 2025, Cobalt ran a VP of Accounting search in Dallas. The client wanted the standard profile: Big Four, seven or eight years, already in real estate. We put forward a senior manager with thirteen years in Big Four and no real estate experience at all, someone who had spent her career on large financial-services audits. Talking the client into that first conversation took me a while. On paper she didn’t fit. The client met her anyway, alongside four or five candidates who matched the brief exactly, and hired her. She is still there today, and thriving in her new role.
How to Stop a Finance Search Stalling
It costs twenty minutes with the actual hiring manager instead of a paraphrase through HR, a same-day answer instead of a week of silence, and a willingness to be flexible about the one thing that usually isn’t up for discussion, the profile itself. That last one is the hardest. It costs organizational will, not budget, and it’s the one most searches never get past.
A randomized trial at Trip.com, a 35,000-person travel technology firm, published in Nature, backs this up: letting 1,612 employees work from home two days a week cut voluntary quit rates by roughly a third company-wide, and by more than half among the longest commutes, with no measurable drop in performance. It’s not a real estate study or a US one, but the mechanism travels.
What to Screen For in Finance Candidates Now
One shift is worth naming too, part of the same misalignment, not a separate trend. If you’re screening resumes for this kind of role, the signal has changed. Systems fluency, Excel, QuickBooks, platforms like Yardi and MRI, used to be what clients led with. Look instead for process improvement: did this person bring month-end close down from ten days to five, or accounts payable from two hours to thirty minutes. As more finance teams put AI into ordinary reconciliations, the candidates who’ve already stood next to that kind of change look safest to hire. Everyone else is quietly being asked to prove they can keep up.
Where This Leaves Us
I see both sides of this market every day, the client who can’t find the person, and the person who’s tired of being the only name on every shortlist. Closing that gap is good for both of them, and yes, it’s good for Cobalt too. I’d rather be honest about that than pretend otherwise.
That’s the conversation I have on the phone every day, on both sides of the desk, and it’s worth having before your next search stalls, not after.
If you’re hiring for finance and accounting roles in US real estate right now, ask your Cobalt consultant for a fifteen-minute market read before your next search goes live, or send us your brief. Or start with me directly Caroline Martinek. If you’re a finance professional weighing your next move, see our live finance and accounting roles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there an accounting talent shortage in the US?
Yes. Public accounting firms were losing around 15% of their people a year as of 2024, mainly over salary, burnout and work-life balance. Accounting program enrollment rebounded 12.4% year over year by spring 2025, its highest level since 2020, but those graduates are still years from senior roles. The shortage makes the pool smaller. It rarely explains why a search stalls.
How long should a finance and accounting hiring process take?
In Cobalt’s experience of US real estate searches, three to four weeks from first interview to offer is normal. Much beyond that, strong candidates have usually accepted another offer. Many clients also spend two to three weeks searching in-house before engaging a recruiter, which is often where the lost time goes.
Why do qualified accounting candidates accept other offers mid-process?
It is rarely about the company. Another employer usually offered what mattered most to the candidate, such as an extra remote day or a salary that felt safer, and made the offer first. Speed and flexibility win more often than the highest number.
What should real estate firms look for when hiring finance staff?
Look for evidence of process improvement rather than systems fluency alone. Excel, QuickBooks, Yardi and MRI skills still matter, but the stronger signal is a candidate who has shortened month-end close or cut accounts payable processing time. As finance teams adopt AI for reconciliations, those candidates are the safest hires.
Does hybrid working help retain finance staff?
The evidence suggests it does. A randomized trial at Trip.com, published in Nature in 2024, found that two days a week working from home cut voluntary quit rates by roughly a third, with no measurable drop in performance. It was not a real estate or US study, but the finding is relevant to any office-based finance team.
Sources
Journal of Accountancy, “The accounting graduate pipeline: Where do things stand?” (October 2025)
