Well, it’s finally springtime, our tax returns are filed, or extended, and the hot job market seems to be getting hotter.  It’s about time don’t you think.  The job market started to cool in the summer of 2008, then went into an “ice age” for about two years, and now it’s starting to feel like the Market is Back.  Not like the pre-dot com bust days, or the housing-bubble boom days, but the market seems to be returning to a normal “we need people now” mode.  California’s unemployment picture is still pretty bleak, and there is still a large group of unemployed people in the Bay Area.  But, in our market areas, finance and accounting and I.T. and engineering, the demand for talent is strong.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that we added I.T. and engineering placement as a new practice area in the first quarter of this year. This new practice is doing well.  All of our new recruiters know how to get to the office now, and they know most of their colleagues names as well!  They are even making placements!  Both on the contract side and regular full-time.  In fact, we need to add a sixth recruiter to the team as the volume of search assignments continues to increase.

Our finance and accounting placement practice has also seen an up-tick in demand.  Many of our long-time clients have made it through the recession and are growing again.  Plus, we have added a few dozen new clients already this year, ranging from pre-IPO to large-cap public companies.  The demand for revenue accounting professionals and SEC reporting people has increased significantly since last year, and, a surprise to me, cost and inventory accounting positions have made a rebound as well.  I thought cost accounting was pretty much dead in the Valley, but the green energy industry has helped bring these jobs back from the endangered species list.  IPO’s seem to be making a comeback as well, as has an increase in VC funding.  It’s a good time to be an accounting/finance professional!

It’s also a good time to be a Big 4 CPA looking to make a move from “reviewing” to “doing”.  Big 4 CPA’s with three to ten years experience will be in big demand this year, especially for those with strong revenue accounting, technical accounting and SEC reporting expertise.  My advice to those thinking about a move to “industry” is to not wait for your annual review.  Just get in the market.  You will make more money; get off the partner or die track; and have a better work/life balance in a corporate accounting/finance department than you would spending another six months to a year at a Big 4 firm.  If you have decided (or the Firm has decided for you) that “making partner” is no longer your life goal, then take your technical expertise and work ethic to “industry” opportunities.  Why put off moving up the corporate career ladder?

Once again, the job market is strong for finance/accounting and I.T. and engineering professionals.  Lots of companies are hiring and there is still a shortage of strong candidates for these openings.  I think it has to do with “the math” thing.  You need to be good at math to make it in I.T. and engineering, and be good with arithmetic (adding and subtracting) to be good at accounting.  Not many people in the USA are good at the math-thing.  Kula needs to add, however.  We need two additional finance and accounting recruiters and one new I.T. recruiter to meet our expected demand for the remainder of 2011.  After all, even recruiters need a work/life balance!  If you know anyone who would be a good add to our team, please let me know.  If we hire anyone you refer to us, I treat you to a weekend in Vegas!

Today is Tax Day.  Usually it’s April 15^th, but, since this year seems to be different from all the rest of them, April 18^th is the day when our federal and state income tax returns are due.  Tomorrow’s the day that tax preparers sleep in – - -until the day after tomorrow.  Since taxes, debt ceilings, budget deficits and such seem to be all the rage in the news, I thought I would try to do a little number crunching and try my spin on what all the shouting is about.  Disclaimer:  I haven’t watched any news programs or read any newspapers (the Santa Cruz Sentinel doesn’t count) or political blogs for a couple of weeks now.  This means that the following information comes directly from my own research and bias. I’m trying to be “Joe Friday” here (youngsters Google it) in this blog, so let me know what you think about it.

The Economic Facts for 2010:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the USA was $14.7 trillion, a slow growth year on a historical basis.  Also on a historical basis, GDP grows at a 2.8 percent annual rate.  Therefore, GDP for 2020 (no eyesight jokes please) will be about $19 trillion.  Total federal debt, aka “The National Debt” was $14 trillion, a little less than one year’s GDP, our annual national income.  The federal spending budget was $3.5 trillion and total tax receipts were about $2.2 trillion, leaving a deficit of about $1.5 trillion.  I guess we could all agree that 2010 was not a great year!  Here’s the breakdown for the 2010 Budget:

Budget Item                                              Spending  (%)                 Receipts (%)

1.  Social Security                           $701 B     (20%)                 $865 B (40%)
2. Medicare & Medicaid               $793 B     (23%)
3. Defense                                          $689 B     (20%)
4. Discretionary                              $660 B     (19%)
5. Other Mandatory                       $416 B     (12%)
6. Net Interest Costs                      $197 B      (6%)
7. Individual Income Tax                                                             $899 B (42%)
8. Corporate Tax                                                                              $191 B (9%)
9. Excise Tax                                                                                      $  67 B (3%)
10. Other Taxes                                                                                   $140 B (6%)

Total                                                          $3.5 Trillion                         $2.2 Trillion

What’s Needed to Pay off the Debt

Let’s suspend all we have learned about economics for discussions purposes and all agree that annual budget deficits of a trillion dollars are not good and that we need to first stop these annual deficits and then generate a surplus to reduce the total debt to some number we would all agree on is reasonable.  If we agree with these goals then we need to find $1.5 Trillion to balance the budget from some combination of increased revenues and reductions in spending.  To accomplish our first goal, all we need to do is reduce the $1.5 trillion budget deficit to zero.  Lucky for us, a really smart person came up with a way for each of us to figure out how we would balance the budget.  Here’s the link to this worksheet, so have a go at balancing the federal budget:  http://public-consultation.org/exercise/.  I’m kind of a push-over, but got the 2015 deficit down to only $183 billion.  What’s your answer?

How to Pay Down/Off the National Debt

I think our second objective, paying down or off the national debt is even tougher than getting rid of budget deficits.  To pay it off we need a stable economy and a willingness to consistently generate a surplus.  This means we would all have to agree not to “invest” in anything as a nation that is not already in our baseline budget, unless we agreed to drop something else that’s already in the budget.  But, again, let’s just agree we can live with this.  How much of a surplus do we need to pay off the national debt?

If we treat the national debt as though it were a mortgage, but a really jumbo one, we need to know three things:  The size of our national mortgage; the length of the mortgage and the interest rate (fixed or variable?).  The size of the mortgage amount is a key part of this.  How much is too much and how much is just about enough debt?  Let’s take two cases:  1. Let’s pay the whole sucker off and 2. Let’s pay half of it off.  This means we should plan to pay off $15 Trillion, the amount it will reach before we get our loan approved, or half that, $7.5 Trillion.

The next step is to determine the length of the loan we can live with.  If we don’t want to burden our kids and grandkids with the debt we would need to pay the debt off very quickly, depending on how old your kids and/or grandkids are.  To meet this “no debt to my kids” goal we would need to pay it off within 20 years.  A pretty aggressive goal if you ask me.   Let’s just pick a really long mortgage of, say, 50 years.  Our goal so far would be to either pay off the $15 Trillion in national debt or half that if we want to build a little character in our kids by 2065 (it will take us 4 years to close escrow on this deal, and that long to get rid of the annual deficits).

The last step is to agree on a reasonable interest rate to pay on this mortgage.  The USA has had pretty good credit and we will all agree to sign a personal guarantee to back it up, so we should get a pretty good deal.  Let’s say the interest rate for a fifty year mortgage is 3.5%, a 30% discount from the thirty year fixed rate as of today.

Here is our annual required budget surplus needed for the fifty years beginning in 2015, at 3.5% interest:

To pay off the whole national debt:  $640 Billion

To pay off $7.5 Trillion of the debt:  $320 Billion

Please remember that these are surplus amounts that we would need to generate year after year for fifty years after we have figured out how to balance the current budget.  To make it more interesting, let’s add this degree of difficulty condition into the mix:  Social Security is required by law to stay within budget, as; I believe is Medicare and Medicaid.  This means that whatever we do to change these two areas will not balance the budget or lead to a surplus.  We can make them cheaper by cutting benefits or move out solvency dates to 2100 or so by changing the employer/employee payroll fees, but we cannot balance the budget or provide a surplus to pay down the national debt from these two sources (unless we cheat by “borrowing” the excess like Congress has been doing for years).  If you don’t believe me on this, show me the facts.

Assuming I’ve read the law correctly, we just took 43% of our budget spending and 40% of our revenue off the table (the 3% difference is covered by the surplus accumulated in our social security trust fund).  Eliminating these two insurance programs from the budget as well as the $197 billion in interest payments, leaves us with $1765 billion ($1.8 trillion) in spending and $1297 billion ($1.3 trillion) in tax receipts to start our balancing and surplus generating programs.

I think we are down to two main questions:  1. What do we need to do to social security and Medicare/Medicaid to make sure they are solvent for the next 50 to 100 years? And 2. How do we balance the annual budget and pay off some of the total accumulated national debt?  I did my calculations, per the above worksheet link, and only got to a deficit of $183 billion.  I need to go back and redo my numbers and shoot for the $320 billion a year surplus target.  Getting to zero national debt is just too hard!

A few months ago a couple of our long-time clients approached us about helping them recruit staff for their I.T. and Engineering areas.  We’ve been asked to do this a few times over the eight years Kula’s been in business, but had always declined.  We declined these requests for two primary reasons:  1. We were a small boutique recruiting firm focused on placing finance and accounting professionals, and didn’t have the recruiting horsepower to take on search assignments in a new discipline, and 2. We knew what accounting and finance people do for a living as we used to be them ourselves, and didn’t feel we were qualified to source, recruit and evaluate I.T. and Engineering talent.  In short, we were too small and ignorant to take on a new business segment!  But, I think we made a good decision by not saying “No” out of hand.  We told our clients to give us some time to make the decision.

We then surveyed our other clients to determine if they needed help finding I.T. and engineering talent.  Most of them told us they needed help and were forecasting continued hiring needs for 2011 and 2012.  When we compared our clients’ needs to each other we saw a good overlap of desired skill sets, and decided we should find out what it would take for us to accept I.T. and Engineer search and contract assignments.  We found we needed to take on a couple of search assignments to test our ability to perform, and, if we were successful in our test case, be committed to adding the recruiting resources needed to provide excellent service.

Our test case turned out well.  We filled three contract and two direct hire openings in a little over a month and began to feel like we were beginning to understand the job specs and the candidates as well!  Then we started to build a placement staff.  We have added five I.T. and Engineering recruiters to our Kula team since January 1, 2011, all with extensive experience recruiting and placing people in these technical positions.  Two of them were actually tech people prior to becoming recruiters, and all have the same Kula qualities as our finance and accounting placement staff.  We are still a boutique firm, but we are one of the larger ones now:  15 recruiters in total.  We are solving our first issue, above, and are no longer too small to do the job.  We are less ignorant than when we started, and are determined to continue to learn more about what it takes to identify the superstars of I.T. and Engineering.

One of my recruiter training friends, Peter Leffkowitz, told me that he started recruiting at an accounting placement firm.  He was guaranteed 80 hours of training in accounting to be able to understand and evaluate the candidates he recruited.  After a week on the job, he asked the firm’s owner when the training would begin.  He was told:  “All you have to do is recruit and interview 80 accounting professionals, and you will know what you need to know to be successful.”  I think he got good advice.  Contacting and listening to people tell you about their careers and skills is the best way to understand what a given group of professionals do for a living.  Even when you have worked in the profession yourself, listening to what others do, and how they describe what they do, will always produce more knowledge than your own personal experiences will produce.

I do feel, however, that it is very critical to have “walked a mile in the shoes” of the candidates and clients you serve in order to provide exceptional service.  Therefore, I have added recruiting staff that worked in tech fields prior to becoming recruiters to help us jump-start our industry knowledge in our new search practice.  Their knowledge has already helped us evaluate talent better than we did in our test case and their recruiting skills have helped us identify more candidates to meet our clients’ needs.

So, please welcome our new I.T. and Engineering recruiting team!  Check out the I.T. job postings we have on our Jobs Map and please let your I.T. friends know about us.  We will be very glad to help them advance their careers.

My last posting covered the power of social media to change the world.  At that time, the Egyptian people had taken to the streets and peacefully forced the government to resign.  Prior to that, the people of Tunisia used social media sites to do the same thing to their government.  O.K., they did have a violent clash or two to seal the deal, but social media was the main weapon system used in Tunisia.  Since Egypt, the power of social media is facing the challenge of real combat against the power-mad ruler of Libya.  That revolution is very much in doubt per today’s news reports.  In my post titled “Who Knew?” I offered my amazement that young people like Mark Zuckerberg had the ability, and, perhaps, the foresight to develop such world changing tools.  Then, this past weekend, I watched the movie, “Social Network”, and am now even more amazed that a bunch of smart people on drugs and booze were able to come up with Facebook! 

But, Social Media isn’t just about changing the world.  No, its all about connecting and hooking-up with others to share news, thoughts, contact information, etc.  For example, two weeks after helping kick Mubarak out of power, Twitter was able to give Charlie Sheen a million followers in just one day, and gives Fidel Castro an audience of over 100,000 followers (Fidel is better in 140 characters).  As for Facebook, Lady Gaga has over 29 million friends, while Bill Gates only has 35,000.  Mark Zuckerberg has over 3.5 million, but is way behind Lady Gaga (I love keying in her name!).  I’ve yet to post a Tweet, and only recently opened a personal Facebook page.  But, Kula is very social media friendly, so I’m learning how to be a “power user” in order to not be left behind doing this old school blogging stuff.  With this preamble in mind, I would like to announce that Kula Consulting has officially launched our company Facebook page and Twitter account.  So please like us and share us and follow us. I promise we will not waste your time or post anything boring.  We will share all of our job opportunities, as soon as we get them via our Job Map; career advice and assistance; great Polynesian food and drink recipes; Hawaiian and Caribbean music and fashion; tips on great places to visit and drink (especially rum drinks); plus lots of photos and video; and chances to win trips, prizes and rewards.  Lot’s more stuff than you will get from following Charlie or Bill Gates.

Since all recruiters are goal oriented and prepare daily plans to reach their goals, we have a goal for our Facebook and Twitter accounts.   Our goal is to beat Fidel Castro’s numbers on Facebook and Twitter!  Our goal is to beat his 20,000 friends on Facebook and exceed the 100,000 people who follow Castro on Twitter.  We are realistic.  We know we won’t top Charlie Sheen’s Twitter total, or come close Steve Jobs Facebook listing of 94,000 friends.  We are not in that league.  But, I used to drink Tiger’s Milk when I played football, and I’m married to a Goddess, so I’m kind of like a “Father Knows Best” version of Charlie.  And the other eleven people at Kula are all as talented and good looking as Lady Gaga (I cannot help myself here), so we deserve, yes, deserve to have more friends and followers than Fidel Castro!  So please, friend us, follow us and share us with all your friends and acquaintances’ on line.  I’ll post a total once a week until we beat Castro.  Let’s show Washington D.C, that we can defeat Fidel, by helping Kula beat his Facebook and Twitter totals!  It’s the American thing to do.  Help us beat Castro and get great stuff from us in return.

A few years ago Kevin Costner appeared in Hollywood at a fund raiser for Israel.  He told the audience he was there because he had Jewish ancestors and, therefore, felt close to Israel.  His speech was followed by long-time comic Jackie Mason, the King of one-liners, who simply said:  “Who knew?” (The shrug is implied.)  I’m sure the deposed and soon to be deposed rulers of several authoritarian regimes are now saying “Who Knew?” about the power of social media.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, even plain old text messaging, and cell phone cameras apparently have the power to take down “strong men” all over the globe.  The same social media sites we use to share our most mundane as well as secret thoughts, photos, movie reviews. Birthday greetings, toga parties, etc., contain the power to mobilize millions of people to accomplish what used to take guns, tanks, aircraft and lots of casualties over months, and even years to do.  Are the founders of these sites now saying “Who Knew?” Or, did they know about the power they were creating when they sat down to start writing code?  If they truly knew, I’m in awe of them.  Heck, I’m in awe of them no matter what they knew or when they knew it.  While the business media were writing articles about how Twitter, Facebook and the rest were going to monetize their followers; these sites have actually gone and changed the world.  Unbelievable!

I guess we do live in the cradle of the 21^st century civilization.  The Silicon Valley (from Marin County to Santa Cruz) has been and continues to be the place that develops the tools to change the world.  Back in the late ‘60’s “the Valley” was all about engineering:  first instruments, then semiconductors, then disc drives, then personal computers, then, on and on and on.  Those of us who have lived and worked in this environment rarely take the time to reflect on what has been accomplished right here in our neighborhoods.  The engineers, programmers and technicians (yeah, even the gamers) have fundamentally changed the way we get, use and relate to information and each other.   And, they have improved their products while lowering the cost.  Just think about this:  Egypt is a country with 40% unemployment, and their starving, oppressed people where still able to afford smart phones, laptops and the ability to splice together downed power lines in order to keep their mobile devices powered.  The power of “the Valley” is humbling.  I would like to thank all of those college drop-outs who have developed the tools people are using to change their lives!  Now, please remember that it doesn’t take a 4.0 GPA from a “top tier” school to be world changers; it takes hard work, passion and creativity.  All traits that are in abundance right here in the Silicon Valley.  As is a high number of 4.0 grads!

I’ve been in the recruiting and placement business for over twenty years and my staffing firms have always focused on finance and accounting.  Kula Consulting, and Management Solutions before it, focused on providing the backroom people who made sure the tech companies were funded, in compliance with government regulations, paid taxes on time and in the correct amount, as well as providing management talent to help the founders of these same tech companies become successful business people.  We have focused on these areas because we came from there ourselves.  Prior to becoming recruiters we worked for Big 4 firms, ran accounting or finance organizations.  Along the way we have also learned some new skills:  How to recruit, evaluate and coach talent.  These skills are useful in more than the accounting and finance niche.  They are applicable to any highly skilled and motivated workforce.  Over the past few years, we have been asked to do searches for I.T. and Engineering people and have declined to do so because we have never “walked a mile in their shoes.”  Recently we decided to say “yes” to a couple of clients and have found we were able to provide the same level of quality and service to them and to the candidates we recruited.  Over the next couple of months we will begin to officially provide I.T. and Engineering placement services for both direct hire and contract assignments.  “Who Knew” we could use our core skills and change our placement world?

If you haven’t already done so, please take a look at our newest version of our Kula website at:  www.kulaconsulting.com.  It’s been a while (since around early 2008) since we updated the site, and lots of things have changed since then.  Our old version was more of a static, on-line brochure and didn’t provide many opportunities to interact with us.  I hope this version is closer to my vision for Kula:  To be an open, friendly and informative place for finance and accounting professionals to connect with great career options.  We have tried to make it more “ohana” as well.  Ohana is Hawaiian for being part of a family.  We strive to treat each other, our clients and candidates as part of our Kula family.  I hope the new website conveys that to you.

We have also added links to our Kula Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages to provide more options for connecting to us and communicating with us.  The last time we updated our website, the only known social media site for professionals was LinkedIn, and we used it more like a job board than a means to stay connected with the people we know.  Social media have changed the way recruiters communicate with clients and candidates.  I’m a talker and prefer to talk directly with people face-to-face, and by phone.  But, many people seem to be too busy to spend the time to really talk, so we text, email and tweet now to supplement our direct communications.  In the coming weeks we will have an upgraded Facebook page complete with lots of career tips and, hopefully, some fun things related to the “life” part of work/life balance.

One last point regarding our newest on-line asset:  Check out our Jobs Map.  We post all of our search assignments daily to this map and link it back to our application system.  We have been refining the map for about six months now and have had great success in generating candidates for them.  We post our temp/contract positions on this map as well, so, check it frequently if you are interested in contract assignments.  Please let me know what you think about our new website and our Jobs Map.  Aloha!

It’s less than ten days to Black Friday and there are only forty-one shopping days remaining until Christmas.  That also means there are only forty-eight days left in 2010.  For all you calendar year companies out there, year end is officially within sight.  Time for the accounting and finance folks to rack-up some huge overtime!  What a Holiday Season!  This is the time of the year that drove me out of public accounting (getting a great job offer from a client didn’t hurt either).  I had two big audit clients in Fresno, which meant observing inventory taking on New Year’s Eve at either a tire warehouse or a carpet manufacturing company.  Don’t even ask about the vet supply business, with the bull stuff in vials!  But, one of my colleagues had it worse:  He had to climb into freezers in Salinas to count the number of bins of frozen strawberries.  Very cold and slippery in there.  We had clients in Silicon Valley as well, and most of them made something you could see and feel.  What do Google’s auditors (PWC?) do for yearend cut-off?  Glad it’s not my problem.

According to the latest national employment figures, a lot of us don’t have any year end work related problems – - – over 14 million of us are unemployed.  With only 2.9 million open jobs in the USA that means there are about five unemployed people for each job opening in America.  In our area the ratio is even worse as our unemployment rate in the Santa Clara valley is higher than the national average.  This may be one of those statistics that looks worse than it really is, but it seems to be pretty bad to me.  I do know for a fact that the Decession we just went through (like my new word?) was not very nice to staffing firms.  2009 was an especially rotten year to be in the search business, as was the first quarter of 2010.  But, the Pollyanna in me sees hope for 2011, especially for finance and accounting.

Perhaps I’m feeling good about 2011 because the second half of 2010 has been very good at Kula.  We have even added staff this year and plan to add more recruiters in early 2011.  I’ve talked to several other recruiting firm owners about their thoughts on 2011, and almost all have a sense that 2011 will be better than 2010, but not an “on fire” market like the pre-Decession years.  I’m sure we will all take normal, o.k. business activity over the wild swings we have been experiencing in the Valley since the late 90′s.  Besides a gut feeling that things are improving, we are seeing more demand for temporary accounting help as well as increased demand for our search services.  The up-swing in temp needs is especially encouraging as temp hiring normally precedes an increase in regular full-time hiring.  Plus, our university system is still not producing enough accounting and finance graduates to keep up with the needs of the market.  I have a nephew graduating next spring with an accounting degree, and he has two offers already.  It still pays to be good at math!

Please accept Kula’s best wishes to you and yours for a great Holiday season.  But, thank goodness, I will not be doing any inventory observations this New Years!

Summertime is one of the worst times of the year to be a recruiter!  The other time is the period from the last Monday in November through the end of the year.  These are the two times every year when it becomes very difficult to schedule people for interviews, and to get all decision makers together to decide who gets hired.  So, thanks Summer for being over!   I must confess that I took three weeks off this summer and didn’t call the office once!  That’s how much I cared.

My slacking off has cost me though, and I’m almost frothing at the bit (an old horseback riding thing for you youngsters out there) to put some people to work!  We have nine weeks left in 2010 to fill all those open reqs that have been aging like fine wine.  The Big 4 folks have found out by now that their raises are lower than they thought they would be and that promotions were being delayed another year as well.  Their choice now is:  Suck it up and get ready for those never-ending 80 hour weeks, or Move on to a real accounting career (do the work instead of review the work) and start working on the career path to CFO.  So let’s get working together to put the best people into new challenging jobs before Thanksgiving!

Some Advice for Big 4 People:

If you have worked in public accounting for at least four years and have decided that working towards a partnership is not for you, then make sure you have your CPA and move on.  If you have the same feeling towards being a partner and you’ve been with a Big 4 for more than eight years, you really need to make a move – - – - your sell by date is fast approaching.  If you are not getting plum assignments and/or your performance reviews don’t put you in the top 25% of your peer group, it’s time to move on.  But, please don’t call us if you are in that last group (unless you would love to be a recruiter!) because our clients will not pay us a fee for average talent.  Network like crazy and prove you’re a star at your next job.  Then call us.

One more thing for the Big 4 people:  Getting your first job out of public accounting is much harder than getting your Big 4 job out of college. You were wined, dined and courted in college.  Your 4.0 GPA meant something to the Big 4 firms, as did your work ethic.  Especially your work ethic.  The Big 4 is all about billing.   Actually, it’s about collectible hours, so working hard and smart are keys to advancement.  Our clients are looking for more than hard workers.  They expect all their people to work hard.  When they hire people from Big 4, they are looking for people with up-to-the-minute technical expertise and experience, and for people who can progress in the organization.  They will expect you to prove you deserve the opportunity they offer, before they hire you.  One way to prove your technical competency is to have passed the CPA exam.  Four to five years of Big 4 experience and no CPA equals very few job opportunities.  If I had a dollar for every job spec that started out:  “A minimum four years Big 4 and a CPA certificate” I would have $300 extra dollars in my pocket this year!

Advice for Companies with Open Job Reqs:

You have nine to ten weeks to get them filled for 2010.  If you needed the people on board yesterday or next week, this is a good year to go the temp-to-perm route.  There is an oversupply of controller-level candidates in the Bay Area, and many of these people are excellent accountants and managers.  But, gasp! a high percentage of them are 40+ years of age.  Who knew that 40 was the new 60?  But we have seen lots of push back from clients on candidates who are highly qualified but have fifteen plus years of experience.  Fifteen plus twenty-three (the age when even my kids were done with college!) equals thirty-eight!  When did that get to be too experienced for a finance and accounting job?

I guess this means my next piece of advice is to look at candidates who remember who Elvis was or who Bob Dylan is. Or even INXYS?  They’ve grown some bark, and seen some things that are useful and can save money.  It’s called experience, and it doesn’t cost that much to get it.

Here’s the advertisement part.  Call us early in the process.  Why tell us that you’re going to give H.R. a couple of weeks before letting us work on the need?  We can handle the competition and you’ll get a much quicker hire.  Recruiters have a maxim that goes like this:  time kills all deals.  The time from need to hire should not exceed six to seven weeks.  Candidates look at “old” job postings as suspect.  “What’s wrong with that job?”  The job has grown hair and is hard to fill.  Why waste two or three weeks letting HR check Monster and LinkedIn, before letting people who spend all day, everyday recruiting the types of people you are looking for?

That’s it for this week.  I’ll be calling you, so pick up the phone when you see “Kula Consulting” on your caller I.D.; I promise our conversation will be worth your time.

I try to visit Maui at least once a year to pay a visit to the place that inspired me to start Kula Consulting. It’s a small town on Mt. Haleakala called Kula.  This month my wife and I spent ten days on Maui and made a trip not only to Kula, but to the top of Haleakala.  If you haven’t been to the top of this volcano, you are missing a fantastic experience.  Next time we go, I would love to camp out there and just look at the stars.

Eight years ago, I spent a month at Kula, visiting one of my sons and future daughter-in-law.  I wanted to be away from the crowds down by the beaches and enjoy a quiet peaceful visit.  I also wanted to spend some time to figure out what I wanted to do with the remainder of my work-life.  This “contemplation” time led me to start Kula Consulting in May, 2003.  On this trip I took some time to reflect on how things have gone since that visit in 2002.

On a personal note, my son got married (as did my older son) and we now have three grandchildren – Ethan, Julia and baby Claire.  By far, these family events have been the most joyous moments of our lives since that visit to Kula eight years ago. Family truly is the source of what makes life worth living for my wife and me.  We include Kula Consulting as part of our family as well.  In fact, the “new perspective” we use as our Kula tag-line comes from the Hawaiian word “ohana”, which means acting in the spirit of family.  It’s about treating our clients, candidates, and colleagues as we would a family member.  But like “Ozzie & Harriet” rather than Ozzie Osbourne’s family.

What does “ohana” mean in a recruiting business context?  I think it means listening more than talking with the intent to understand what the other person is trying to communicate; offering advice that helps people make decisions that are in alignment with their work and personal goals; facilitating the decision-making process with the goal of making matches that last; and treating our colleagues with respect, honesty and kindness.  Additionally, I think “ohana” means helping people achieve their goals.  But, “ohana” doesn’t mean soft and touchy-feely.  There are times when family members disagree or have conflicts.  It’s how these unpleasant situations are handled that separates functional from dysfunctional families.  More specifically, Kula has strived to treat our own interests behind the interests of our clients’ and candidates’ interests.  We do not try to push people into doing what will make us money in the short-term (such as take a job that isn’t the right fit for them), but rather to work towards meeting both our clients’ and candidates’ goals.  I hope we are achieving the spirit of “ohana” with our actions, but you are the people who know for sure.  I would appreciate your thoughts on how we are doing.

Other Things I Learned From This Trip

Exercise really is important!  I’ve always had a theory that we have a set number of heart beats and that exercise uses up too many of them per hour. This belief has kept me safe from exercise for years.  It’s also, apparently, kept me fat.  Here are a couple of examples:  My wife “induced” me to walk three miles on the beach every morning of our trip to Maui, and I LOST 5 pounds in spite of all the eating and drinking I did on this trip.  And, I found you need to be fit to be able to enjoy ocean sports.  My belly kept getting in the way when I tried to stand up on my Stand-up Paddleboard.  I need to lose it before I can use it!  I finally get it and will start exercising here in Santa Cruz – - – soon.

A great cocktail for those of you on a weight loss diet:  Hana Bay dark rum, lime juice and diet Coke.  Go heavy on the rum and you drink fewer of them.  Also, try any of the Maui Brewing Company beers.  They come in cans, are brewed in Maui and are very “hoppy”.  Enjoy these beverages at any place in Maui with a view of the sunset.  Guaranteed to help you mellow-out and keep the weight down at the same time.

A Couple of Recommendations

Here are a few places and people I recommend if you are ever in Maui:

1. Eskimo Candy at http://www.eskimocandy.com/.  They have a great fish stew, fish and chips, poki, and ribs.  It’s a take-out place that’s also a seafood wholesaler.  Sort of like Phil’s in Moss Landing.
2. Moose McGillicuddy’s at http://www.mooserestaurantgroup.com/.  For a good happy hour and sunset view.
3. Tasty Crust at http://www.tastycrust.com/ for a good local breakfast place.
4. Mama’s Fish house at http://www.mamasfishhouse.com/ for a romantic, great dinner place.
5. Alan or Patti @ http://www.hstwindsurfing.com/ for a great place to learn how to surf, windsurf or Stand-up Paddleboard.  Very nice people and they know what they are doing.  (Even if I didn’t.)

Of course, if you ever want to just get away from the bustle at the beaches in Maui, visit the Kula Lodge for a great place to stay, enjoy the view and enjoy a meal.  You can find out more about them at:  http://www.kulalodge.com/

Have a great Memorial Day holiday and please pause for a moment to remember the people who have served our country.

The Kula blog normally covers the local job market for accounting talent, plus some “how to” tips on hiring or finding a job.  But, today is April 15^th.  Tax Day!  So, I’m taking this opportunity to offer my thoughts on current events.  I will admit up front this blog is editorial, so skip it if you could care less about my thoughts on issues outside of the recruiting business.  Or, please share your views and opinions on what I have to say.

Federal Taxes

98% of US tax payers will pay less tax for 2009 than they did for 2008.  A family of four making less than $50,000 a year will pay no income tax at all. Plus personal income tax rates are the lowest they have been in sixty years.  Good news, right?  Apparently not if today’s and last year’s tax day protests are an indicator.  I’m having trouble understanding why people are protesting paying taxes.  Having to pay taxes means you have income; and, if you are part of a family of at least four, you are earning over $50,000.  Of course, two of the major reasons for the current low tax rates are the tax breaks contained in the economic recovery programs and the lower incomes earned by most of us due to the Great Recession.  Why tax protests?  Our big corporations are doing even better on US tax day – - – hardly any of them are actually paying any federal income tax.  Probably due to their having hired our great tax accounting candidates!

I don’t see how federal taxes are the problem. They are lower than they have ever been in most of our lifetimes.  I think people are protesting because they are angry and frustrated with how things are going (or not going) in their personal lives, and taxes are easy to get off about. A group called Realty Trac is reporting that one million homes will be repossessed by banks this year. Others report that over a quarter of all mortgages are underwater.  And, unemployment is still very high and not supposed to get better for at least the next two years.  Throw in the rage over bailed out bankers getting new bonuses that exceed the average person’s lifetime earnings and we can all see why people are angry.  But, I don’t see how it has anything to do with taxes.

The Federal Deficit

Another media stated reason for the angry public discourse is the size of our federal deficit.  Hello?  Did anyone take a basic economics class in college?  The way to stop a recession from becoming a depression is for the federal government to spend more money.  In effect:  Be the employer of last resort.  We have been accumulating a deficit for a long time.  Why are we just noticing this?  We spend more than we take in (low tax rates plus spend lots on two wars, etc.).  This action leads to deficits.  Back in the day, the fear was Japan would soon own us because of all the debt we owed them.  Now we are supposed to be afraid of the amount of debt held by China.  Does anyone remember the old financing maxim:  When you owe the bank a little bit the bank owns you, and when you owe the bank a lot, you own them?  It seems to me to be about the same situation.  When the recovery picks up some more juice and the Bush tax cuts lapse in 2011, we will start to see a reduction in the deficit.  When we have the political will to close some of the tax loopholes and, heaven forbid, reduce our spending (drop a couple of wars?), we could potentially start paying down the debt.  If we don’t do any of these things, my three grand kids will get to show how smart they are when it’s their turn to run the country.

Healthcare

I’ve saved this one for last to let my heart rate slow down a bit.  Three weeks ago we received a premium increase notice for our group medical insurance.  Our friends at Blue Shield of California raised our premium by almost 60%.  And they changed the terms of our coverage as well by upping our maximum out of pocket costs by 50%.  Our new insurance premium would now be greater than what we pay for rent, utilities, phones and liability insurance premiums combined.  This is life in a small company.  It’s no wonder that most small businesses do not offer health insurance to their employees.  Now, I’m not sure if the insurance reform laws that were recently passed will help us and other small businesses, but something needed to be done to reform our health care system.

Prior to becoming a recruiter, I worked for companies with international operations.  The health care systems in each of the countries I worked with were much better for our employees than what we offered to our US employees.  And, our benefit plans were competitive here in the USA.  I never received any health care complaints from our Swiss, French, German, Japanese, or Singaporean employees.  But, I sure heard them about our US health insurance providers.  None of these other countries was communist, socialist, or Marxist, or totalitarian, but their health care systems all had a strong government role.

I know from personal experience(s) that our health care system was broken, unfair and too expensive.  I don’t know if the recent health care reforms will solve all of our problems.  But, I do believe the savings to accrue from the changes will help reduce the deficit in the future and will fix some of the issues we have all had with health insurance providers.  By the way, we have been able to reduce our rate increase to “just” 45% by picking a different plan.  Now our medical insurance premiums only equals the total costs of the items noted above!  Such a deal!

That’s it for my, I hope, mild rant on the issues of the day.  I promise to write about the job market next time.  Thanks for listening.