The role of compliance officer may be the most crucial for executive recruitment within a legal or financial organization. It is also a critical position for any other type of company that must adhere to regulatory or legal requirements.
The compliance officer’s primary duty is to continually ensure that the organization is adhering to governmental legal and regulatory guidelines. They also see to it that internal policies are followed. The compliance officer is the company’s guardian against regulatory violations, which can pose a severe threat to a company’s very livelihood. Therefore, it is in an organization’s best interest, when hiring a compliance officer, to make sure they will competently protect it.
Here are 5 things to ask a potential candidate when hiring a compliance officer.
1. What is your understanding of compliance within our field?
Compliance includes many different factors for different types of organizations, and is as varied as the different sets of regulations governing them. For example, finance has its own regulations, but real estate financing has one involved series of regulations, while investment financing has another. Within the investment arena, there are different types of regulations governing different types of investments.
Your compliance officer will be at the helm, navigating your organization through ever-changing regulations. It is their foresight and understanding that will mitigate risk for stakeholders and shareholders. Make sure that your compliance candidate has a comprehensive understanding of your particular field.
2. What has your experience been in compliance within this field?
As anyone in the business world knows, there is a considerable difference between someone who has studied a subject and someone who has practical employee experience in it. Experience in a complex area such as compliance provides a whole level of knowledge above and beyond an understanding of regulations.
Find out what practical compliance experience your candidate has within your particular field.
3. Are you up-to-date on the latest regulations?
It will be chiefly up to the compliance officer, of all the people within the organization, to keep abreast of changes in regulations for your company’s particular field. Find out if your applicant is up-to-date with the latest regulatory changes. You might also want to inquire how your candidate keeps themselves informed of such changes. How do they make sure they have the latest?
4. Just taking a thumbnail look at our firm, what do you see as the primary regulatory risks we face?
This is the sort of question you should have answers to in advance, from your organization’s experience with compliance. Your candidate most likely has already looked over your company’s potential risk, so have them talk to you about what they perceive that risk to be. Gauge how accurate their views are.
As part of this process, you might want to lay out various scenarios for the candidate to analyze, to test their understanding of your organization’s risk.
5. What would be your response to a regulatory breach, if one were to occur within our company?
If a breach of regulations occurs, it will be up to the compliance officer to ensure that such a breach never happens again. Measures taken could be disciplinary, and should also include any added monitoring of compliance practices. They also might consist of inspection of compliance procedures to identify potential improvements.
Find out how your candidate would respond to a regulatory breach.
Compliance Recruitment—Professional Search
CCY’s professional search can provide you with a expert team and a proven recruitment process for compliance candidates. Our recruiters possess a deep knowledge of the regulatory requirements that impact your organization, and specifically tailor recruitment strategy for each client.
