Background For Career

Dear Import/Export Compliance Manager,

What is the typical background of a trade compliance professional?  Is there a certain college degree or prior job experience which makes you more likely to succeed in the profession, particularly management? 

Logistical in Lexington

Dear Logistical,

One of the frustrations of getting into the import/export compliance profession, as you’re probably aware, is that you can’t steer yourself in an educational setting towards a free ticket into the field.  Even though import/export compliance is gaining a bit more exposure at the university level and there are more training programs out there, there’s just no set way to get yourself in.  On the plus side, however, you can reasonably expect to break into the field regardless of your background.  Seriously, could you go out and be an accountant without formal education in the field or accounting experience?

Without a strong incoming pipeline of job candidates like there are for engineers, marketers, finance people and other white collar types, employers are forced to try to find personnel based on either talent or convenience.  Let’s talk about the latter first.  Convenience, in this instance, means being in the right place at the right time (or, depending on who you talk to, at the wrong place at the wrong time).  Most of us import/export compliance people have either met or been the person who received the proverbial tap on the shoulder by their boss.  You could have been happy in your job doing logistics, customer service, supply chain or procurement and then bam!, welcome to the world of CBP, BIS, ECCNs, HTS Codes, EEIs, CF 7501s, Defense Services and all the fun they bring.  Your boss didn’t mind that perhaps you had minimal to no experience with trade compliance; congratulations, you’re it.  You were the convenient, and therefore, most sensible choice. 

The second thought is to hire specifically based on talent.  This comes into play more once someone has already set up the program and is hiring analysts or specialists to fill roles.  Sure, you may have no or little experience but do you show the capacity to explain difficult concepts, to understand complicated regulations, to create procedures from scratch and to interact with colleagues in other departments without embarrassing the department? 

You’ll notice that neither of these require any particular background to get in.  The same applies with regard to succeeding in import/export compliance.  There is no particular educational background that means you will succeed.  One very successful trade compliance professional is an Art History major.  The Import/Export Compliance Manager majored in Political Science.  Many successful import/export compliance professionals do not have a four-year degree yet that does not stop them in their pursuit of ensuring compliance at their companies.  Again, this allows for a wider range of people to jump into the profession as opposed to needing a certain educational background.

The same applies, as you’re aware by this point, to prior job experience.  Sure, there are certain departments that are more likely to have a basic understanding of import/export compliance, such as logistics.  Such experience would make you a more well-rounded professional but it wouldn’t necessarily make you a good one.  The Import/Export Compliance Manager would actually put more stock in having experience in a compliance-related field where you had to deal specifically with understanding rules and making sure they are understood and followed. 

There are certain things you can do to make yourself more appealing to the hiring manager for an import/export compliance job.  Anything that shows you are truly committed to getting into the field, such as taking the Customs Broker Exam or participating in import/export compliance groups, will help set you apart from other job candidates with little or no experience.  As far as competing against other job candidates with experience, the Import/Export Compliance Manager recommends showing examples of the talents required to succeed at the particular position and, perhaps most importantly, that you have the capacity to learn quickly (provide examples!).  Most hiring managers don’t expect to hire a compliance brainiac; we do expect to bring someone on who can pick it up in a reasonable amount of time and run with it.

You didn’t mention what stage of your education or career you are in.  If you’re working toward a four-year degree, take as many international business courses as you can.  If you’re in the work world, do as many extracurricular activities related to import/export compliance as you can and try to fit it in as much as possible into your work life (or at least learn enough about it to be able to speak more credibly in a job interview).  Maybe someday you’ll become an awesome import/export compliance manager who just happens to have a degree in animal husbandry.