Professional assessment 

CHECK YOUR SECURITY MANAGER

SA WEST introduces new service:

Professional assessment of security and corporate intelligence managers.

With its broad experience in security, risk management and corporate intelligence SA WEST will help you to clarify if potential or current employee who is responsible for security and/or corporate intelligence of your company has confirmed experience and up to date knowledge in his area of responsibility.

What do business leaders check when they hire Chief security officer (CSO) or Corporate affairs’ manager (CAM)?:

1. Clear background (no criminal records, confirmed professional education and employment history)
2. Positive references of previous employers
3. Clear or positive credit history check results

It is pretty close to regular pre-employment screening of middle-level executive, nothing special.

Why regular screening in not enough if you hire security professional?

One knows that almost 80% of corporate security professionals are people with previous military, government intelligence or police background. Collection of references from these institutions is a very special assignment. Potential employees know that and prefer mystifying this period of their lives (“highly classified job”, “їnumerous cases solved”, “strong relations with the government” etc.) Is it true or just a fake? Can we rely on applicant’s words?

Sometimes (especially in former Soviet countries) potential employee’s ability in building transparent and clear relations of the company with local authorities and regulators is a key task of CSO or CAM. If applicant is really as strong in this task as he declares? – No one knows until employee met real assignment. What if the price of his fault is too high?

Corporate intelligence as well as corporate security is a developing brunch of knowledge: new technologies, methods and solutions appear every year. Yet in Russia and CIS there’re no reliable centers of professional assessment in security and intelligence fields, but does it mean that the company should rely solely on applicantв«Єs ability to educate himself or there’s a reason to check his knowledge before he will start fulfilling his duties?

Professional assessment of security and corporate intelligence managers is a new service that we’ve built meeting challenges of this market.

1. Check if the applicant was really involved in classified activity. If possible, we collect references of his previous co-workers. We have no intention to share classified information and will only confirm / deny employees words.
2. Check his personal (former professional, family etc.) relations with local authorities and regulators.
3. Check his knowledge during the interview and remote tests in:

  • Security laws and regulations;
  • Knowledge of software solutions in security/risk management fields;
  • Knowledge of technical solutions and brands;
  • Knowledge of legal informational sources and legal practices of data mining;
  • Understanding of general business tasks and vocabulary.

We believe that professional assessment of security and corporate intelligence managers will help in hiring qualified and reliable employees.

Remark: the man on the picture is Russian tsar False Dmitry I. He was the first, and most successful, of three “pretenders” who claimed during the Time of Troubles to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. He ruled for a year and was assassinated because of his total uncompetitiveness.