Compliance experience: you'll find more of it than a CV shows

70% of in-house legal teams name increasing compliance and regulatory pressure as one of their biggest challenges. Furthermore, 73% state that compliance and regulatory matters are among the areas of law in which their team works.

However, organisations seeking temporary support to address this challenge are confronted with a striking statistic: only 16% of interim legal managers explicitly list compliance as a specialisation. At first glance, this appears to be a shortage. In practice, it is primarily a visibility issue, and this affects both sides of the table.

Why the supply of compliance experience is greater than it seems

Compliance is rarely a strictly defined discipline. The traditional lawyer analyses regulations, assesses legal risks and translates these into contracts, advice and decision-making. The compliance officer translates rules into policies and processes, is responsible for training and reporting, and ensures that the rules are actually adhered to.

In practice, the line is not always so clear-cut. Contracts, privacy legislation, corporate governance and sector-specific regulations all have a significant compliance component. An interim manager with years of experience in, for example, contract law or GDPR therefore often already masters a large part of the compliance puzzle, without ‘compliance’ ever appearing as a separate label on their profile. The figures therefore suggest, above all, that legal interim managers do not always highlight their compliance experience clearly enough.

For companies: look beyond a CV

Are you looking for temporary compliance capacity? Then it’s worth looking beyond the title on a profile. Specifically:

• Ask about experience with implementation, monitoring or governance, even if a profile does not present itself as a compliance specialist
• Look out for sector-specific experience: compliance requirements vary greatly by sector, and that knowledge is often more valuable than a general compliance title
• Involve a partner who knows the market: someone who works with interim profiles on a daily basis will recognise more quickly which experience is transferable to your specific challenge

For legal interim managers: highlight your compliance experience

Do you have experience with implementation, monitoring or governance on top of your legal expertise? Then you would be well advised to explicitly highlight those skills. There is a good chance that you have more compliance-relevant experience than your CV currently shows. Here’s how to make it more visible:

• Be specific about which compliance-related tasks you undertook in previous assignments, such as drafting policy, monitoring GDPR obligations, or overseeing an audit
• Mention the sector-specific regulations you have experience with; this is often exactly the distinguishing factor a client is looking for
• Don’t wait until an assignment is literally titled ‘compliance’ to mention that experience. The requirement is often hidden within roles such as contract law or data protection

Compliance pressures are not set to ease in the coming years; regulations accumulate over time. For companies, this means that the demand for temporary capacity will continue to grow steadily. For interim managers, it means that those who position their experience more clearly now are preparing for a market that will only demand more of that expertise.