Our Bank has decided to hire a separate, dedicated BSA officer. Up to this point the job responsibilities have been split among several individuals. If you were hiring a BSA officer today, what would be the questions you would want to ask jobseekers ? Thanks

Depending on what the job description is, I would inquire about the prospect's BSA experience in terms of accomplishments and longevity within the BSA field. Secondary inquiries could focus on management style, short term and long term goals, etc. Bottom line, you want to ask questions that will make you feel confident that the prospect is able to the job that you are posting.

SAR CZAR raises good points. Specific questions I would ask include:
What is your BSA experience? Or how did you gain your BSA experience?

If the candidate was a compliance officer or BSA officer at another institution, how was their program viewed by examiners? (I suspect this one will generate some discussion among BOLers, but this is a question you need to ask.)

How will you effectively train our staff? Describe your past experience in training people.

What will you do in the first 90 days on the job?
What should our objectives be with BSA?
What do you see as our biggest BSA risks?
How would you meet those objectives or address our risks?
How do you go about assessing BSA risk?

Those are just some examples that will get the conversation going. Good luck. AR.

If you have any AML software, you might want to ask if the applicant is familiar with the software. If he or she is not, you may want to ask if they are familiar with database software and database analysis.

Whether or not you have AML software, you may want to ask that type of reports the applicant used for AML monitoring, and what type of trends or activity did he or she notice or find to be the latest issue in the AML field.

Another question is to find out how he or she would address communication between the BSA Compliance Department and the branches and other customer contact departments.

Ask them how many pages are in the new BSA/AML Examination Procedures manual!

Then ask them if they have read it cover to cover.

Then ask then to explain exactly, step by step, what they would do to ensure the bank is complying in a manner to pass an examination.

Good answer, but I would still ask the question