HR expert Jordana Barkats explains how compliance officers are recruited – FinanceFeeds investigation

As the demand for compliance professionals across the electronic brokerage industry, with salaries and day rates having soared by almost a quarter during 2016 compared to last year, FinanceFeeds has begun a series of investigations in order to establish what skills are necessary and more importantly which skills are sought after within this industry.

Compliance and regulatory officials within companies with a high level understanding of today’s technological reporting systems, cross border efforts by many companies and the increasing astuteness with which national financial markets regulators are viewing companies over which they have jurisdiction, knowledge and experience is most certainly vital in order to ensure companies continue to innovate and evolve whilst upholding responsibilities.

Today, FinanceFeeds spoke to Jordana Barkats, HR Manager at Leverate who explained what is necessary from a recruiting perspective when hiring compliance officers and executives.

Here is her account:

Here are my thoughts on hiring and assessing candidates for compliance positions. Please bear in mind that I’ve hired one and thus am not very experienced in hiring for this position.

First and foremost I’d look for a strong sense of responsibility and ownership.

They are the gatekeepers to the organization in this position and need to take their job very seriously. If something needs to be finished by a deadline they don’t drop the pen when it’s time to go home and leave the task unfinished.

Compliance officers should take pride in their work and understand the importance of their duties. You can assess this by seeing if they talk passionately about the importance of compliance and give examples of times they went above and beyond the call of duty.

I’d also look for detail orientation, as working in compliance requires a lot of attention to detail and not missing any issues or reports. You can see their attention to detail in their CV, specifically in writing, spelling and grammatical errors.

Errors and a sloppy CV has been demonstrated to be correlated to success at work. This job also requires organization to manage all the different tasks in a timely manner. You can see how they organize their experience in their CV as well, if the CV flows logically and clearly.

I strongly suggest you prepare a simulation for the candidate so they can demonstrate their skills and so you don’t rely solely on how they present themselves. The simulation should be similar to ongoing duties to accurately test their professional knowledge and skills that are relevant for the position.

Lastly, it’s important to assess the candidate’s communication skills, both verbal and written. They need to manage ongoing correspondence with clients and provide advice and guidance to employees on a variety of compliance matters.

A good compliance officer is able to educate employees and deal with complex issues with clear and thoughtful communication. You can assess their communication skills in an interview, are you able to communicate with them easily? Do they create rapport easily with you?

As far as experience goes, they definitely need the professional knowledge and depending on the specifics of the position it is doable to hire someone without major experience if they are closely managed and receive proper training and guidance.

Featured photograph: Andrew Saks-McLeod talks to Jordana Barkats at Leverate, Tel Aviv, Israel