The market
The shortage nobody is building their way out of
Fewer accounting graduates, more retirements, and CPA searches that run months — the accountant shortage is structural, not cyclical. It hurts hardest exactly where Tethran already works: plants, projects, and portfolios that can't close the books without a controller. This desk is the portfolio's stabilizer, built to cover the gap and then end it.
Who this desk places
The seats that keep the close on schedule — interim the week you need it, permanent when the right hire lands.
Who buys in this market
One desk, both halves of the problem
Most firms sell you interim coverage or a permanent search. This desk's whole design is that they're the same engagement — and both halves count toward the same published number.
Industrial & project businesses
Plant controllers and project accountants for the same kinds of clients our construction-side desks serve — the seats that keep WIP schedules and job costs honest.
INDUSTRIAL SIDECompanies in a search gap
Interim close support the week you need it, while the desk runs the permanent controller or FP&A search — one relationship, both halves counted.
INTERIM + PERMPE-backed & growing companies
First controllers, FP&A build-outs, and the audit-ready close discipline a growing platform needs before the next raise.
GROWTH SIDEHow an engagement works
Three steps, no mystery
The desk takes the req
You brief recruiters who place accounting and finance leadership and nothing else — who know a plant controller from a corporate one because they place both. Fee and timeline guidance in the first conversation.
Coverage first, then the search
If the seat is empty, interim close support lands first — then the permanent slate follows: CPA-verified, reference-checked candidates the desk already knows. No resume floods.
Attached through 180 days
Structured check-ins through the first six months, because every placement — interim and permanent — counts toward the published Hold Rate, and the Hold Guarantee is already in your agreement.
Staffing's open secret is fall-offs — and in accounting, a fall-off lands in the middle of a close, an audit, or a filing. The Hold Rate is the share of our placements still in seat or contract-complete at 180 days: audited, covering every placement, published quarterly from Q1 2027 — and this desk's number will publish on its own line from its first placement. An interim engagement that ends because the permanent hire started counts as complete.
For candidates · Benefits
Contract work, built like a career
Volume staffing treats a contract placement as a line item. A career desk treats it as one stop on a longer track — which is why the benefits look more like what a permanent employer offers than what a 1099 shop hands you.
Health & dental
Coverage available from your first day on eligible W-2 placements, interim or permanent — not after a waiting period.
Retirement access
Retirement plan access on eligible W-2 placements — plan details published when the desk opens.
PTO accrual
Paid time off accrues on qualifying long-duration interim placements, not just permanent seats.
Credential reimbursement
CPA license renewal and CPE reimbursed once a placement holds past six months.
Fast-track re-verification
Once we've screened you, later placements skip redundant paperwork — your file travels with you inside the desk.
Personal Hold record
Every placement, how long it held, what it led to next — a portable record you own from placement one.
Eligibility varies by placement type and duration — the desk walks you through exactly what applies before your first submittal, and this benefits summary appears on every desk page, because it's the first question both sides ask.
For candidates · Career compass
The map publishes with the desk
Every open Tethran desk carries a career compass — entry paths, credentials, rungs, and pay bands drawn from that desk's own placements, refreshed as its Hold Rate dataset grows.
The founding desks are drawing theirs now — see the Data Centers & Telecom desk for what a live one looks like. Early-list candidates on this desk help draw the first version: the entry paths and credential guidance it publishes are built from your placements first.
Opening 2027 · Get in early
This desk opens in 2027. The early list is open now.
Desks open when the founding playbook proves out — and each one opens the way the first two did: early clients shape the bench, early candidates start their Hold record from placement one.
The first clients shape the desk
Early conversations set which roles the bench is built around, which industries get coverage first, and how the Hold Guarantee terms are written for how the close actually runs.
The first candidates get the first calls
Early-list members get the desk's first reqs when it opens, founding status in the desk community, and a personal Hold record that starts from placement one.