If your organization is struggling to fill roles such as senior accountant, accounting manager, assistant controller or financial planning and analysis (FP&A) manager, you are not alone. Across markets, employers are seeing more applicants, longer hiring timelines, and fewer candidates who fully meet role expectations — not due to a lack of interest, but because mid-level finance roles are evolving faster than many traditional experience profiles. The true challenge is finding professionals with the right combination of accounting depth, systems fluency, operational judgment and business partnership capability.
Why Mid-level Finance and Accounting Roles Remain Difficult To Fill
As predicted in Cherry Bekaert’s Recruiting & Staffing Services 2026 Accounting and Finance Salary Guide, the time-to-fill for mid-level finance roles has increased over the past 12 to 18 months, even as hiring activity has moderated. In many cases, while candidate volume is high, the gap between traditional accounting experience and the broader mix of systems, reporting, analytical and operational capabilities these roles increasingly require.
We’re seeing this trend play out across the board. Recent reports from LinkedIn’s State of the Market show that hiring is slowing down worldwide, with companies closely managing headcounts and related costs. But even in this softer market, expectations for mid-level finance roles keep rising. On par with the evolving role of the chief financial officer (CFO), employers are asking more from mid-level candidates, not less.
This pattern of increasing expectations despite slower hiring is also reflected in employer conversations across multiple industries, particularly where finance teams are integrating systems, data and reporting, consistent with themes highlighted in our Middle Market CFO Survey.
Even in a slower hiring environment, mid-level accounting and finance roles remain difficult to fill because business expectations have changed.
Today’s roles increasingly require candidates who bring together:
- Accounting fundamentals
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and systems fluency
- Data analysis and business insight
- Cross-functional communication
Put simply, many mid-level finance roles now require candidates who can do more than execute core accounting work. Employers increasingly need professionals who can connect systems, reporting and business context — and that combination remains difficult to find in one candidate profile.
More Applicants Does Not Mean Better Alignment
Many hiring teams report larger candidate pools, increased interviews and longer decision cycles, but few candidates meet all requirements. We hear consistently that shortlists are longer, but fewer candidates make it through the full hiring process. This is often due to gaps in systems experience, misalignment on role expectations, or competition for candidates who meet hybrid requirements.
In many searches, the bottleneck is due to alignment between what the role has become and what candidates have been asked to do in prior environments.
How Mid-level Finance Roles Have Evolved
ERP and Systems Fluency Are Now Expected
Mid-level finance roles are no longer defined only by accounting responsibilities. They are increasingly tied to how the business operates and how finance supports decision-making. Organizations expect candidates to work confidently within ERP environments, understand how upstream processes affect financial outcomes, and contribute to stronger accuracy, reporting and visibility. In practice, this means many mid-level roles now sit closer to the business than a traditional accounting title may suggest.
This shift is closely tied to ongoing finance modernization initiatives as organizations invest in systems, automation and better data visibility.
Data Literacy Is Now a Baseline Expectation
Hiring managers expect candidates to interpret trends, explain variances and communicate insights across the business, not just produce accurate work. Yet job descriptions do not always reflect that shift clearly. As a result, candidates often enter the process prepared for a more traditional accounting role, while hiring teams are evaluating for systems fluency, analytical capability and business partnership potential. That disconnect is one reason stronger applicant volume still does not necessarily translate into stronger shortlists.
Mid-level Roles Carry Greater Operational and Leadership Responsibility
With more selective hiring and leaner teams, mid-level talent is expected to bring more ownership, prioritization and cross-functional judgment than in the past.
These roles now increasingly involve:
- Supporting team performance and mentoring junior staff
- Improving workflows and reducing process bottlenecks
- Stabilizing close and reporting cycles under tighter timelines
In practice, this means many positions now require candidates to combine strong technical execution with ownership, prioritization and informal leadership within the team. The need for combined accounting expertise, operational thinking, and team support makes these roles harder to fill than traditional accounting positions, directly causing longer hiring timelines.
Real-world Example: High Applicant Volume, Few Fit
Across several recent searches, clients have received strong applicant volume for roles such as accounting manager, senior accountant and other mid-level finance positions, but only a small subset of candidates met evolving expectations around systems fluency, analytical capability and practical ownership. In many cases, searches extend beyond expected timelines, not because of low interest, but because employers are looking for candidates who can contribute with minimal ramp-up in increasingly complex finance environments.
What Is Driving Extended Time To Fill
Role Design Has Not Kept Pace With Business Needs
Many job descriptions still emphasize responsibilities rather than outcomes. This attracts candidates who may not correspond to the role's actual scope. In several recent searches, roles were adjusted mid-process when hiring teams clarified that systems knowledge and cross-functional capability were more important than originally defined.
In some cases, the role has already evolved into a hybrid accounting, reporting, and business-support position, but the job description still reflects a narrower, more traditional scope. This type of mid-search recalibration can significantly extend hiring timelines.
What to do: Define roles in terms of outcomes and success measures. Improve close predictability, reduce reconciliation timelines or strengthen reporting consistency.
Interview Processes Do Not Reflect Real Work
Traditional interviews often focus on technical questions, but do not fully evaluate how candidates operate in practice.
What to do: Introduce a short, structured work sample that reflects real responsibilities. This allows hiring groups to assess decision-making, prioritization and communication more effectively.
Compensation and Scope Are Not Aligned With Expectations
Mid-level accounting and finance roles increasingly overlap with responsibilities that touch finance systems, reporting, analytics and operational process improvement. When employers expect one person to span several of those areas, candidates often evaluate the role against a wider set of opportunities, not just a traditional accounting benchmark. If compensation, leveling or scope is not aligned to that broader expectation set, hiring friction increases quickly.
What to do: Align scope, leveling and compensation early in the process to reduce friction later.
The Impact of Finance Modernization
Case Study: ERP Modernization in Practice
See how ERP modernization and process improvements can reshape finance operations and reporting workflows.
As organizations continue to invest in finance modernization and transformation, accounting and finance roles are becoming more tightly integrated with operations, systems and reporting. This shift is reducing the number of purely transactional roles and increasing demand for candidates who can operate across systems, processes and business context. For finance professionals, that also means staying current on how the function is evolving — not just within a current role, but across the broader direction of the market.
How To Reduce Time To Fill for Mid-level Finance Roles
While the underlying challenge is consistent — rising expectations for mid-level finance talent — local market conditions still shape how those hiring gaps show up in practice.
1. Define Success Before Opening the Role
- Clarify where the role needs to support accounting execution versus systems, reporting or business-partnership activities
- Identify outcomes expected within the first 90 days
- Specify which skills are non-negotiable
- Determine which capabilities can be developed
2. Evaluate Candidates Based on Real Job Requirements
- Use structured work samples
- Focus on applied decision-making and communication
3. Build a Talent Bench, Not Just Individual Hires
If roles continue to reopen, the issue may go beyond the hiring speed. Review your onboarding process, workload balance and development pathways within your finance team.
Final Takeaway
The fastest hires rarely happen by accident. Leaders who are landing stronger finance talent this year are getting clearer about what success looks like in a role that has changed, aligning expectations to modern business needs and removing avoidable friction from the process.
If your team needs to move faster, a few proven moves may make the biggest difference:
- Set clear goals before you open the search. What do you really need this person to accomplish?
- Decide which three skills your team can’t function without, then focus your interviews there.
- Use real-world scenarios in interviews, so you see how candidates think through the same problems your team faces daily.
- Keep the process simple and transparent. The less confusion and back-and-forth, the more likely you are to land your first-choice candidate.
When you spell out what matters most from the start, you make it easier for the right people to say yes and your team gets stronger, faster.
Next Steps Forward
Still wrestling with open roles? Connect with Cherry Bekaert’s Recruiting & Staffing Services team for practical advice on compensation, role design and the capabilities modern finance teams increasingly need.
