Recruiting Compliance Professionals

It’s the reality of every compliance professional, as soon as one regulation is processed, road mapped and complied with, another one is created that also needs to be rapidly adjusted to. Whilst this is the usual environment for compliance, an ever-changing landscape of risk is also creating pressure on organisations and exposing a compliance talent shortage. To overcome the skills shortage and keep pace with regulatory changes and newly-emerging risks, employers in financial services will need to think outside the box when it comes to recruiting the right compliance skills to future-proof their businesses.

Get high-level compliance recruitment advice and stay ahead of the skills shortage.

New challenges in regulatory compliance and risk management:

KPMG outlined the key risks facing financial services that compliance functions will need to prioritise in the near future, some of the most pressing include:

 1. Climate risk and ESG

ESG and climate risk are becoming more than ‘nice to have’ policies in risk and opportunity evaluations. Stress testing, scenario analysis and due diligence monitoring will become more and more expected from regulators within financial services.

2. Cybersecurity and operational resilience

Operational and cyber resilience will need to take centre stage when it comes to leading and informing business decisions that take place in the digital landscape. Continued remote working, increased phishing and cyber-attacks mean that important business or client data is at risk, and regulators will expect more controls in place to protect it.

3. Financial crime and AML

The current economic climate is rife with fraud, insider threat, KYC, CDD, and AML. Regulators will be expecting broader and more detailed data analytics, real-time insights and surveillance for controls on misconduct. Fraud, cybersecurity and financial crime teams will need to work closely across all three lines of defence to provide cohesive protection for organisations. 

Financial services organisations that operate with cryptocurrency will need to stay aware of continually updating regulations as AML becomes more and more sophisticated. 

4. Tech-enabled consumer and investor protections

Financial services organisations are leaning towards implementing technology-enabled systems for surveillance, testing controls and monitoring for real-time data and insights. This is to realign consumer and investor protections with the best possible practice for regulatory scrutiny over fair access, UDAP, UDAAP, privacy and wealth management. 

5. Culture compliance risks

The government’s stimulus funds combined with internal focus on culture and conduct create new challenges for compliance professionals to compete with. There is a new movement towards embedding compliance at the heart of company culture that is sure to be more widespread in the coming years.

3 top compliance recruitment solutions:

To meet these compliance challenges, employers will need to think creatively when it comes to building, upskilling and broadening their compliance function to meet the requirements of this constantly evolving environment of risk and compliance. Not only is the organisation at risk if the right compliance team isn’t in place, share prices, reputation and relationships with regulators can be compromised too.

1. Look to increase data analysis skills on teams

Data and real-time insights are going to project compliance functions and professionals into hands-on support systems for business decision making. Focussing your recruitment or internal upskilling strategies on sourcing or developing those skill sets are going to be vital to meet the needs of the future regulatory landscape and risk climate.

2. Emphasise stakeholder management

Hand in hand with increased data insights, compliance functions should look to better increase their stakeholder management skills to cement that relationship between the insights that compliance professionals generate and the C-suite’s decision making.

3. Engage a specialist recruiter

The compliance talent pool is limited in the current climate, all employers with an eye on the future requirements of their compliance function are trying to garner the attention of a small group of compliance professionals. Engaging a recruiter who specialises in the wider compliance sector will be able to source the right individuals with the right experience more effectively than most internal recruiting functions.

Not reliant on job boards, specialised compliance recruiters can draw on a broad network that’s been built up over years, following compliance talent from entry-level to C-suite, allowing them to target the right individuals for any brief whilst also aligning opportunities with candidates’ personal goals, and ultimately making a longer-lasting placement. 

Building your risk and compliance team with Barclay Simpson

Barclay Simpson is an international recruitment consultancy that specialises in recruiting professionals for the interrelated disciplines of Governance, namely Information/IT Security, Risk, Resilience, Audit, Compliance, Legal and Treasury. 

When you’re looking to build and secure your organisation for years to come, Barclay Simpson can help you quickly build a technically proficient compliance team. 

Get in touch for information on regulatory and financial crime compliance recruiting support