Executives I speak with all agree, experience matters more than education or credentials, especially when it comes to FP&A. The all encompassing role of FP&A (financial planning and analysis) is growing in importance, but also complexity. What started as repetitive daily duties has evolved and become something more interesting and of more value to companies.

FP&A requires more than just the technical skills (finance & accounting) needed for reporting; it requires a breadth of knowledge across a wide skill set in order to drive value for the organization.

Simultaneously, the costs of a bad hire are more expensive than ever; the financial burden can easily be in the $10's of thousands of dollars, but more importantly, the months of resources spent to interview, hire, train, and fire are non renewable.

This makes a CFO's hiring decision difficult. She must see past the banalities of the routine FP&A resume to determine if the candidate has not just the mental horsepower to learn the core functions of the job quickly, but also the ability to excel in the role which involves soft skills, strategic thinking, and an ability to create value from ambiguity.

Exceptional FP&A talent is not easy to find.  Because the skills acquired through experience are highly transferrable the market value of the professional becomes greater since their experiences appeal to a broader audience.

The traditional hiring practices for FP&A are antiquated and fragmented. FP&A workloads vary greatly given the company calendar, which would ideally translate to maintaining a lean full time team with the ability to rapidly scale whenever needed to cover capacity shortfalls.

Solution: offer only experienced FP&A professionals who are available on demand and mitigate the risks inherent in full-time hiring.

Skip the Hire has done just that. Termed the “NetJets for Finance Talent” by Byron Reese, STH has accumulated an expansive pool of FP&A talent ranging from Director’s at Fortune 500 companies to top business school students, all with prior experience who have been individually vetted.

STH creates the marketplace that connects independent FP&A talent with businesses to work on a project basis. Because they source project based work the opportunity for supply side FP&A professionals to have a primary job, gain additional experience and sharpen their skills through STH gigs while supplementing their income makes for an attractive value proposition. 

Clients have free access to this marketplace.  Once STH understands the client's business need they tap their consultant base of FP&A pro's to find the most qualified matches who have the availability, and interest for the project. STH shares these profiles with the client for free, and does not ask for payment information until a project has been initiated.

The company asks for no commission and does not make a dime if the client chooses to hire their consultant full-time.