In this article Compliance Matters interviews an expert in permanent compliance employment in the City of London. Among other things, he calculates the amount of a compliance officer's salary that the typical recruiter charges the hiring manager.

Recruitment, despite the tough economic circumstances of lockdown, has not ground to a halt. One London compliance recruiter told Compliance Matters: "It was relatively quiet over the previous two weeks as people settled down into the new way of life. During the middle-to-tail of last week, though, it picked up. Many recruiters have been dismissed because of cash-flow problems at recruitment firms. I'm on furlough - usually I do nothing, but people on furlough can still work in some lines of business but can't do fee-generating work, so if they want to do something they build market maps and do things like that. Furlough is there to stop redundancies because it reduces the cash-flow cost."

"There are signs of recovery in the compliance recruitment market elsewhere in the world. We've seen a major bounce-back in China and Hong Kong. I imagine that it's quite similar in Singapore, although I don't know if it is."

The following interview is with a different recruiter - Ben Harris of Morgan McKinley (pictured), who looks after permanent appointments. It is in the form of a question-and-answer session.

Q: How does one build up momentum in one's compliance career?

A: Online courses are very good at helping to build up your career. LinkedIn is the place where they find the next generation of compliance officers, so the first thing that you ought to get is that LinkedIn profile. Use it to tell people as much as you can about your achievements and what you want to do in your career. Social media, too, is the way of the world. Then there is always word of mouth, which is always a very good means of promotion.

Recruiters still have a massive role, so you ought to get a couple of them on your side. The selling point of recruiters is that they are good at finding opportunities and brokering them. They really do have the ear of hiring managers (i.e. line managers) and human resources people at financial institutions. They are always keeping an eye out on the market and looking at what firms want to hire. They know all the gossip and they (unlike you) can look at your career dispassionately.

You should be relying on all these things rather than just a CV landing on someone's desk.

Q: How much of a compliance officer's salary goes to the recruiter who brokered his appointment?

A: It varies. It depends on the seniority of the job and other factors. If it's a very senior job at a large bank, the recruiters get 25+%, or maybe something in the 30s. If it's a junior job, the industry standard is 20%. For a senior appointment at a medium-range firm, it's 20-25%.

Some well-known banks have run their compliance and risk departments together in the decade since the crash of 2008. In risk, the recruiter probably takes about 22-23% of a junior compliance man's salary and 25-30% of a senior man's. Operational risk and compliance fit quite nicely together. I often see compliance officers getting jobs at private banks in a trading capacity. They know about trading compliance.

Q: How do compliance officers and MLROs differ personality-wise, if at all?

A: I think they do differ. MLROs tend to have a more investigative bent. They come out of the National Crime Agency or the fraud squad or the police, whereas compliance officers start life as traders or lawyers. Lawyers tend to go for regulatory compliance rather than becoming MLROs. It is not unheard of for them to become MLROs but it is not common.

Q: Do you think that the dangers that MLROs face (i.e. their liabilities under the Proceeds of Crime Act) make them different from compliance officers as well as their backgrounds?

A: I think so. Candidates for the job of MLRO want to be number 2 at the firm and not number 1. In fact, they often want to be the AML director - this is more popular than the MLRO position, in fact it's our bread and butter.

It is a massive responsibility being an MLRO, although I haven't yet seen an MLRO get thrown to the wolves.

Q: Is it good for a compliance person's career to take a job on secondment at the Financial Conduct Authority? Does that look well on his CV?

A: It absolutely does look well. It's great experience. It gives him a grasp of the rulebook and it allows him to "see what good looks like." I've seen some people coming out of normal compliance for a year to do it and some doing it for longer.  

Q: Do you ever see compliance management consultants - at such firms as ACA, SimplyBiz and CCL - going back into the fray and working as compliance officers at banks?

A: Yes, for numerous reasons. In management consultancy if you're a partner they pay you far more than if you're a senior consultant. If you're a senior consultant and you have another spell at a bank's compliance department it can help you go back into consultancy as a partner. But even if you don't do that, you're better off money-wise at a bank than being an ordinary consultant. Other people go back to being compliance officers at banks because they want to be able to say that they have delivered another project. Sometimes they spend 5-6 years in management and then go to a bank for 2-3 years, but there are no normal figures - there are multiple moves to make.

Realistically, if you're going to have a strong career, you really have to stay somewhere for a while and see some projects through and move up the food chain.

You get consultants going into the Big 4 accountancy firms - that's a good career move. Then they might go back into management consultancy again.

Q: Is being a compliance consultant an easier 'gig' than being a compliance officer at a bank?

A: I wouldn't say so. It's a different gig. If you're a management consultant, you make suggestions to banks but you don't stay to see them through, so it's a different gig.

Q: If there is one lesson that you have to teach aspiring young compliance people, what is it?

A: Make sure that you network! The ones who do best in this game are the really great networkers. The new breed of compliance officers are very cognisant of networking. Its value cannot be underestimated. Without it, you're not going to progress. It's also a good idea to go to a roundtable and make a good impression.

Q: What are these roundtables? Are they hosted by events companies?

A: Sometimes they are hosted by events companies, sometimes they are just compliance monitoring heads at banks meeting to discuss regulations. They tend to be regular, once a quarter usually. Some compliance heads organise chats on WhatsApp.

* Ben Harris can be reached on +44 207 092 0168 or at bharris@morganmckinley.com