Intuit, whose technology platform helps millions of customers and communities overcome their most important financial challenges, is experiencing phenomenal growth of its Expert Network – a team of Tax Preparers, EAs, CPAs, Tax Attorneys, Bookkeepers, Financial Planners, and more.
We sat down with Stacie Herring, VP of Intuit Expert Network Services, to gain insight into how the company has leveraged its value proposition and technology to become an employer of choice.
Before we dive into how Intuit is influencing the tax & accounting industry, can you tell us why so many experts want to be part of the Intuit team?
They love working at Intuit for many reasons. First and foremost, we care about our experts, and work hard to build a culture where they feel valued for what they bring to Intuit. We work equally hard to create great experiences for them. Additionally, our experts appreciate Intuit’s reputation as an innovator through our ecosystem of products that includes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp. Being a leader in our industry, and in the communities we serve, is a strong motivator, too. Our experts benefit from the flexibility we offer in schedules and virtual roles, and the digital suite of AI-driven tools at their fingertips. Perhaps most importantly, from day one, our experts have thousands of colleagues with whom they can interact and learn from to share best practices and build professional networks.
Can you tell us more about your SelectTime roles and why they are some of the most sought after in the industry?
We have many roles at Intuit for seasonals and year round experts. Our SelectTime roles combine part-time flexibility with competitive benefits like health care coverage – even for those who don’t work 40 hours a week with Intuit. We’re proud to bring these benefits to our experts as they enable team members to care for the people who matter most in their lives.
What kind of feedback do you hear from Intuit experts?
We have some of the best engagement scores in the industry. We see high ratings for Intuit on Glassdoor and our year-over-year retention rate for our seasonal experts is above 90%. A significant number of our experts have their own separate practices, so we often hear their appreciation for the flexibility of the role and the ability to work from home. But at Intuit, we never get complacent. We continue to create additional opportunities for team members – new offerings, new roles, and new career paths. When our experts feel valued and have the tools they need to be productive, they are happy, and they go the extra mile to support our customers. Their satisfaction leads to more growth and success for them and for our company.
How are the macro trends currently impacting the tax & accounting industry (i.e. the “Great Resignation,” working from home) changing Intuit’s approach to hiring experts?
Honestly, we were already ahead of the curve in addressing employment trends – especially for developing a fully virtual model for all of our professional tax and bookkeeping experts. And, with the rise of remote work, we knew we had to build an engaged, connected community. We have that now, and our experts can easily access meaningful training and development opportunities. Those experts who choose to build their career at Intuit are in a position to grow their skills and talents, and improve their earning potential as they qualify for new and expanding roles, and ultimately reach their career goals. Just as we “power prosperity” for our millions of tax and small business customers across the globe, we strive to do the very same thing for our experts.
Are you scaling the platform? If so, has it accelerated Intuit’s hiring?
Absolutely. And as our number of customer interactions continues to rise, we’re growing our professional workforce to meet the demand. We offer a variety of roles of varying skill levels, so experts can advance their career paths based on their preference for professional growth. We recently launched Intuit Academy, a program to help develop tenured financial professionals and encourage new entrants into the field. For example, we already have thousands of aspiring bookkeepers enrolled in our bookkeeping courses.
Outside of Intuit, what’s the top frustration that you hear from tax & accounting professionals?
We know experts are having to source and cobble together their own configurations of workforce tools, and those tools don’t always work in tandem. If they are running their own practices, they also have to deal with everything from finding new clients to business management. That means they spend more time on paperwork, installing an application, or calling a company’s help desk – basically all the things that can make some folks less productive and sap their energy.
How do you break through these challenges at Intuit?
With our Virtual Expert Platform, we are able to give our experts what they need to serve our customers within a streamlined AI-guided workflow, freeing up their valuable time to focus on sharing their expertise — and we provide a wide variety of clients, nationwide who our experts can serve.
So tell me: What’s Intuit’s secret sauce?
Simply put, we pair incredible humanity with leading-edge technology to further our mission of powering prosperity across the globe. We move fast, push for new ways of doing things (to benefit both customers and experts), and we embrace diversity in people, skills, and experiences to keep being better.
Can you share a story about an expert that makes you particularly proud to be part of the company?
I’m glad you asked, because I want to share Sara Clifton’s career journey. Sara is a military spouse. Like many military spouses, she has followed her husband throughout his career in the Navy.
Shortly after Sara and her husband moved to Washington state, she heard an Intuit ad promoting our bookkeeping certification program. It intrigued her, and she signed up the day the course was offered. After taking the 80-hour program, she passed the certification test. But that was just the beginning for Sara; she also connected with some recruiters who encouraged her to apply for an expert role with Intuit. Two weeks later, she got the job!
Now, as part of Intuit, Sara loves her role, her team, the culture of positive affirmation and feedback , and the flexibility she has in her career. She’s shared with us how satisfying it is to feel useful outside of the household again, and that she’s overjoyed that her Intuit career fits her lifestyle.
This story is truly a win-win: Wherever Sara goes next within the U.S., she can continue to build her Intuit career, and we benefit from her rich experience and track record of problem solving. It’s stories like Sara’s that remind me why we at Intuit do what we do everyday.
Join the Intuit team
If you are a credentialed CPA, tax associate, a government accountant, an auditor – or you’re working in another capacity in the financial industry – you can build your future at Intuit. We have seasonal, part-time, and full-time career opportunities for you. Learn more about the company and see all of our opportunities on the Intuit career site.