Who I'm really looking for when recruiting for an Accounts Payable team
When recruiting new people, it's easy to notice that you instinctively look for the same words: "SAP", "Excel", "timely payments". But if you think about it - that isn't a list that tells me anything about the person. It's a list that only tells me what someone has learned. And after years of managing work in AP, I now know that technical skills are the easiest piece of this puzzle. The rest is much harder to spot on paper.
So I decided to write down what I actually pay attention to when I recruit someone for a team responsible for payables. Not as a ready-made recipe, because there is no such thing, but as something that may be useful to other AP leaders - or to people wondering whether this career path is for them.
Accuracy that isn't the same as perfectionism
At first glance, it seems that a good AP specialist has to be meticulous to a fault. And indeed - an error in a bank account number or an invoice amount can cost a company real money and real stress. But over time, I've learned to distinguish between two things: accuracy and perfectionism.
Someone who works accurately checks their work because they understand the consequences of an error. A person who slips into perfectionism can get stuck on a single invoice for half a day because something "doesn't feel right" to them, even if it makes no difference in practice. In recruitment, I try to sense this by asking candidates how they cope with time pressure when there is a large volume of documents to process. Their answer tells me more than the statement "I'm very accurate in my work".
The ability to talk to people who don't want to wait
This is something I underestimated at the beginning of my career, and today I rank it high on my list. Working in AP isn't working in isolation with Excel - it means daily contact with suppliers who write or call upset because they haven't been paid, with procurement departments complaining about a blocked invoice, and with the accounting team, which needs explanations right away.
A good AP candidate can talk to someone who is irritated without escalating the situation. They can say "no" in a way that doesn't make them the enemy. It's a skill you can't identify from a diploma, but you can pick up on it already during the job interview - from how someone reacts to a difficult question or how they talk about a conflict at a previous job.
Curiosity about numbers, not just tolerance for them
Many candidates tell me that they "enjoy working with data". Less often do I hear that they are curious about what that data means. And that's a big difference. A person who only enters invoices into the system does their job correctly as long as everything goes according to plan. A person who asks "why doesn't this amount match" instead of simply posting the discrepancy catches errors before they become a problem.
This curiosity is something that later translates into trust - because I know I can entrust such a person with something more complex than routine tasks.
Calm in the face of month-end chaos
Anyone who has worked in finance knows that the month-end close means a different pace of work. More documents, more questions, less time. During job interviews, I ask directly about situations in which the candidate had to do more than usual, but in less time. I'm not looking for heroic stories about working through the night - I'm looking for information on whether this person can set priorities instead of panicking.
Integrity that is rarely talked about openly
This may sound trite, but in AP integrity has very practical implications. This team has access to information about the company's cash flows, sometimes to supplier data, sometimes to situations in which someone could "turn a blind eye" to something that doesn't quite add up. During recruitment, I pay attention to how a candidate talks about ethically ambiguous situations from a previous job - whether they notice them at all, and whether they treat them as something that clearly cannot be ignored.
Willingness to learn how to use tools, not just familiarity with them
Accounting systems change faster than they used to. It is convenient when someone is familiar with a particular software package, but for me it isn't a prerequisite. What matters more is whether I see in a candidate a willingness to learn new tools quickly - because in a year or two we'll probably be working in something else anyway, or with new automations.
What I'm not looking for
Just as important as what I check is what I consciously don't treat as a requirement. I don't expect comprehensive experience in every area of AP - I'd rather have someone who has solid foundations and wants to grow than a person who knows everything but has no curiosity. Nor do I expect someone to be perfectly self-confident during the interview. Feeling stressed during the recruitment process is natural, and I'd rather see a genuine, slightly nervous person than a rehearsed presentation.
In closing
For me, recruiting for AP is a bit like putting together a team that has to safeguard the company's money, but also talk every day with people on both sides - inside and outside the organization. Gaps in technical skills can be closed. It's harder to develop accuracy combined with composure, integrity and a willingness to ask questions. And it's precisely these qualities that, after all these years, tell me whether a given person will do well on this team in the long run, or only for the first few months.
