TheCorporateCounsel.net

Recently, I blogged about how Staffer pay levels at the SEC have increased substantially since I left a dozen years ago. In her recent testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, SEC Chair Schapiro indicated that she is looking to hire many more Staffers as part of her request for a big jump in the SEC’s budget. Here’s an excerpt from that testimony:

Managing Agency Growth: While the budget request anticipates significant growth in the size of the SEC, the agency is properly positioned to implement this spending plan. To accomplish the hiring of hundreds of new staff during the course of FY 2011, the SEC is enhancing its human resources staff and, consistent with its current authorities, streamlining its hiring process. Improvements include simplifying the application process and maintaining a searchable database of applicants, so that it is possible to interview for a vacancy as soon as it appears rather than having to go through the lengthy posting process each time. Being able to better tailor, target and speed recruiting will enhance the quality of applicants and help the agency acquire the necessary talent to perform effectively in an increasingly complex financial environment.

Perhaps to gear up for all this hiring, I understand that the SEC has retained a recruiter – Futurestep, a Korn/Ferry Company – to help “provide strategic talent acquisition solutions to help the agency address its continuing talent needs.” I don’t recall the SEC using a third party to help find candidates before – although I admit it’s something that I haven’t paid much attention to and it easily could be fairly routine…

Recently, SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar delivered this speech entitled, “Recruiting the Best and the Brightest Means Striving for a Diverse Applicant Pool.” When I last worked at the SEC, then SEC Chair Arthur Levitt pushed hard for Wall Street to diversify. It’s a topic that certainly deserves greater attention as not much has changed.

Wanted: CLO for the SEC’s “SEC University”

One of the more interesting jobs that has recently opened up down at the SEC is the one for a “CLO” (no, not a “chief legal officer”). Below is the job description (note the opening just closed so the job isn’t listed online anymore):

The Chief Learning/Knowledge Officer (CLO) of the Securities & Exchange Commission is responsible for the management of SEC University and coordination of all SEC education investments providing executive leadership, policy direction, functional management, and successful coordination of Agency-wide training and development program and activities.

The CLO is responsible for ensuring that SEC’s learning and development programs and investments are linked directly to the Agency’s strategic goals by managing and implementing synergies among learning and development programs, SEC University and mission Division technical training units to meet the critical training goals of the Agency. These strategic plans/goals include assessing Agency-wide knowledge gaps technical and management competencies, developing strategies to close knowledge gaps, creating external partnerships designed to ensure leading edge training and development programs, and managing technology to deliver learning and knowledge programs across the Agency to ensure investment in employee knowledge development are optimally managed.

Getting Hired by the SEC

Last Fall – in response to a request from a Professor who had several students applying for an entry-level job at the SEC – I posted this 5-minute video on YouTube giving my ten cents on what it’s like to work for the SEC and what the hiring process is like.

It’s not a recruitment video (nor a parody). The SEC has been flooded with resumes over the past year – but I often get asked the question about how one gets hired there so I thought this might help those that may be curious. I slapped this together real quick so beware of low production values. I pointed the Flip at myself and shot…

– Broc Romanek