Spoiler: the people who tested this guide during development had successful interviews, advanced to next rounds, and most of them landed jobs.
There's no shortage of advice on what questions candidates should ask during the interview process. You can find lists for salespeople, for first-time managers, for new grads, for just about every industry.
What you won't find is a guide built for compliance professionals. Until now.
In a compliance interview, you're also figuring out whether the job can actually be done. Does leadership back the program or tolerate it? Does the budget match the mandate? Has anyone asked whether the training works, or just whether people finished it? Those answers shape your next few years, and generic interview questions won’t get you there.
I've done my share of interviews. Over the years I've asked good questions, missed a few I should have asked, and accepted a role or two that looked better on paper than it turned out to be. Now, I’ve taken all those hard lessons and created a list I wish someone would have slid across the table to me years ago.
What's inside
60 Questions to Ask in Compliance Job Interviews covers the role, your responsibilities, how your performance will be judged, the compliance function itself, the company, the culture, the hiring manager, and your own development. Each question comes with a short note on why it's worth asking and what to listen for.
The ones I care about most are the questions that reveal the true health of the program. How does the company know its compliance program is working? What’s something that didn’t go well recently? Tell me about a time leadership backed a compliance decision that was costly or unpopular.
Nobody can answer those with a slogan. Listen for whether they can give you a real example, even a vague one.
Pick the handful that fit the person across the table—logistics for the recruiter, culture for your future peers, governance and measurement for the hiring manager or CCO. Asking the right person the right question is its own signal that you understand how the business operates.
And if you accept the offer, the same questions make a strong backbone for your first-90-days listening tour, when you're the new person with a short-lived license to ask basic questions.
Who it's for
Whether you're early in your career and need a little nudge, transitioning into compliance, or experienced and want to pressure-test your own list before your next interview, this guide is for you.
