How Small and Mid-Sized Companies Can Compete With Big Firms for Finance Talent

Landing strong finance and accounting talent has never been straightforward for small and mid-sized businesses. The assumption, from candidates and employers alike, is that larger firms simply win. They offer bigger salaries, brand recognition, and structured career tracks that are hard to argue against.

But that framing undersells what smaller organizations actually bring to the table. The employers who consistently attract strong finance talent aren’t necessarily the ones with the deepest pockets. They’re the ones who understand what motivates experienced finance professionals and position themselves accordingly.

1. Understand What Finance Talent Actually Wants

Compensation matters, but it rarely tells the whole story. According to Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report, employees consistently rank opportunities to learn and grow, quality of management, and work-life balance among their top reasons for staying in or leaving a role. Salary is a factor, but it’s rarely the only one.

Large firms often struggle to deliver on all three. Career paths at big companies can feel rigid or slow-moving. Culture is harder to maintain at scale. And despite the post-pandemic shift toward flexibility, large organizations still apply remote and hybrid policies inconsistently across departments and seniority levels.

Smaller companies, by contrast, can offer something genuinely rare: real visibility into how the business works, direct access to leadership, and roles where individual contributions have a measurable impact. For a meaningful portion of the finance talent market, these aren’t consolation prizes. They’re the preference.

2. Get Serious About Compensation Benchmarking

You don’t have to match a Big Four salary to be competitive, but you do have to know where the market is. Many small and mid-sized employers lose candidates not because they’re dramatically underpaying, but because their offers land slightly off, and they don’t find out until the candidate declines.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program publishes updated compensation data for finance and accounting roles by region and experience level. The AICPA also publishes annual compensation surveys specific to accounting professionals. Using these as a baseline before posting a role, rather than after an offer falls through, saves significant time and money.

Where base salary has a ceiling, think carefully about total compensation. Performance bonuses, profit-sharing, additional PTO, remote or hybrid flexibility, and professional development support including CPA exam reimbursement or CPE funding can close the gap meaningfully. A 2024 SHRM survey found that 88% of employees reported that benefits and perks were an important consideration when choosing a job, with smaller employers often having more flexibility to customize packages than large firms with rigid, standardized structures.

3. Sell the Scope of the Role

One of the most underused advantages smaller companies have is role breadth. A senior accountant or finance manager at a mid-sized company is often doing work that three or four specialists handle at a large firm. That’s not a weakness to apologize for. It’s a selling point for the right candidate.

Finance professionals who are ambitious about their careers frequently hit a ceiling at large organizations where specialization is the norm and lateral exposure is limited. At a smaller company, an FP&A manager might own budgeting, cash flow forecasting, board reporting, and strategic planning support simultaneously. That kind of scope builds a resume faster and creates more well-rounded leaders.

When writing job descriptions and conducting interviews, lead with this. Don’t bury the breadth of the role in a bullet list. Make it central to how you describe the opportunity.

4. Build a Visible Culture of Development

Professional development is a significant lever for smaller employers, and it’s frequently underused. Finance professionals, particularly those pursuing or maintaining CPA, CFA, or CMA credentials, care deeply about whether an employer supports their continuing education. According to the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, employer-sponsored CPE and certification support rank among the top non-monetary benefits accounting professionals consider when evaluating offers.

Small and mid-sized companies can often move faster and more personally on development commitments than large firms. You can offer a clear conversation with the CFO about a candidate’s growth path, a specific plan for expanding their responsibilities over 12 to 18 months, and genuine access to senior leadership that a candidate at a 5,000-person company will simply never have.

Mentorship, cross-functional exposure, and involvement in strategic projects are all development benefits that cost relatively little but carry real weight in a competitive offer situation.

5. Move Faster Than the Competition

Speed is one of the most overlooked competitive advantages a smaller employer has, and one of the most commonly squandered. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Talent Trends report, the top candidates in any market are typically off the table within 10 days of starting a search. Large organizations, with their multi-round interview processes and lengthy approval chains, frequently can’t move that fast.

Smaller companies can. A streamlined two-to-three interview process, clear internal alignment on the hiring decision before the search begins, and a prompt offer once the right candidate is identified can be the difference between landing your top choice and starting over.

Review your hiring process before you launch a search. If getting to an offer takes six weeks internally, the problem isn’t the talent market. It’s the process.

6. Leverage Employer Branding, Even at a Small Scale

Candidates research companies before they apply and before they accept. A 2023 LinkedIn survey found that 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even submitting an application. For smaller companies without household name recognition, this creates a real but solvable challenge.

You don’t need a large marketing budget to build credibility. A well-written careers page that honestly describes your culture and growth opportunities, current employee testimonials on your website or LinkedIn profile, and consistent engagement on LinkedIn as a company all contribute to a brand that candidates can evaluate and trust.

Finance professionals are analytical by nature. They will look at your Glassdoor profile, review your leadership team on LinkedIn, and look for signals of organizational stability and culture. Make sure what they find reflects the opportunity accurately and positively.

7. Work With a Recruiter Who Knows the Finance Market

Smaller employers often compete for the same candidates as large firms without the internal recruiting infrastructure those firms maintain. A specialized finance and accounting recruiter levels that playing field in several important ways.

First, access. The strongest candidates in the market are frequently not actively searching. They’re open to the right opportunity, but they’re not posting their resume on job boards. A recruiter with deep finance networks can reach those candidates directly.

Second, positioning. An experienced recruiter knows how to present a smaller company’s advantages in a way that resonates with finance professionals who may have assumed bigger is better. Reframing the narrative around scope, impact, and growth is something a good recruiting partner does before a candidate ever walks in the door.

Third, speed and quality. External recruiters reduce the time your internal team spends sourcing and screening, which compresses the overall timeline and improves the quality of candidates reaching the final stages.

The Talent Is There. The Strategy Has to Match It.

Small and mid-sized companies hire exceptional finance professionals every day. The ones who do it consistently aren’t winning on salary alone. They’re winning on clarity, speed, culture, and a genuine understanding of what their ideal candidate actually wants from a role.

If your organization is ready to compete more effectively for finance and accounting talent, Burchard & Associates can help. We specialize in connecting employers with experienced finance professionals across all levels, from staff accountants to CFOs, on a direct hire, contract, and contract-to-hire basis.

Contact Burchard & Associates to start the conversation.