I’ve been placing accounting professionals in Dallas and Fort Worth for over 20 years. In that time, I’ve watched the market shift in ways I didn’t always see coming. But what’s happened in the last several years — the wave of major corporate relocations into DFW — is reshaping the talent landscape in ways that a lot of local employers haven’t fully reckoned with yet.
The Companies That Changed Everything
You already know the names. Toyota. Charles Schwab. McKesson. Goldman Sachs. Oracle. CBRE. Caterpillar. Hewlett Packard Enterprise. These aren’t small operations setting up a satellite office. These are full headquarters relocations, and they brought their finance and accounting functions with them. Some of them brought their entire corporate accounting teams. Others recruited locally. Either way, they landed in North Texas and immediately started competing for the same professionals that boutique CPA firms and mid-market manufacturers have been relying on for years.
Why are they coming? You’ve heard the pitch: no state income tax, a business-friendly regulatory environment, lower real estate costs compared to California or New York, and a strong university pipeline from UT Dallas, TCU, SMU, and Texas A&M. All of that is real. But here’s what doesn’t get talked about as much — these companies didn’t just bring their logos to Texas. They brought their compensation structures.
The Compensation Shift You Can’t Ignore
A controller at a company that relocated from San Francisco or New York was making coastal money. When that company moved to Plano, they didn’t cut her salary to match the local market. Why would they? She moved too. And now she’s your neighbor in the talent pool, and her compensation sets a new anchor for what a comparably experienced controller in DFW expects to earn.
I’m seeing this play out directly in searches right now. Candidates who were reasonable at a certain range two or three years ago now have competing offers from these transplant companies that blow local comps out of the water. It’s not unusual for a senior accounting manager at one of these relocated corporations to be earning what a controller or even a director of finance was making at a local mid-market company just a few years back.
Benefits: Where Local Employers Get Caught Flat-Footed
The benefits picture is just as important, and this is where local employers often get caught flat-footed. Many of these relocated companies come from environments where rich benefits packages were table stakes — robust health plans with low employee cost-sharing, generous 401k matches, equity participation, flexible work arrangements, and professional development budgets that actually get used. When a candidate is comparing your offer to theirs, the base salary line is only part of the story.
I had a client last year — a solid, well-run manufacturing company in the Metroplex — lose a finalist candidate to one of these relocated firms not because of base pay, but because of a 6% 401k match versus their 3%, combined with a significantly better health plan. The candidate liked my client’s culture. She liked the role. She took the other offer anyway. That’s the market we’re in now.
What This Means Practically For CFOs And Business Owners
First, benchmark your compensation more frequently. What the market looked like in 2022 isn’t what it looks like today. The influx of large employers has created real upward pressure on salaries at the controller, assistant controller, and senior accountant levels specifically.
Second, take your benefits package seriously as a differentiator — or a liability. If your health plan has high deductibles and modest employer contributions, that needs to be factored into how you’re competing for talent. I’m not suggesting every company needs to match a Goldman Sachs benefits package. But knowing where you stand, and being honest with candidates about it, matters more than it used to.
Third, lead with what these large companies genuinely can’t offer. There’s a real segment of experienced accounting professionals who have worked inside big corporate environments and specifically want out. They want visibility to leadership, a chance to own a function rather than manage a sliver of it, and work that actually matters to the business. Boutique firms and mid-market companies have a genuine story to tell there — but they have to tell it clearly, and early in the process.
The corporate migration to Dallas is, on balance, a tremendous thing for this region. But it has changed the rules for accounting and finance hiring in ways that local employers need to understand. The professionals you’re recruiting have options they didn’t have five years ago, and those options are sitting in Plano, Las Colinas, and downtown Dallas with recognizable names on the door.
The companies that will hire well in this environment are the ones willing to look honestly at their offer — all of it — and make sure they’re competing on the things that matter to the candidates they want to attract. If you need help benchmarking your compensation package or navigating this competitive market, contact Mary Ann Markowitz & Associates today to discuss your hiring strategy.