Is Asking a Question on Considerations for Hiring a Security Consultant Off-Topic?

Question

I was wondering if the below question would be off-topic(?):

Considerations for Hiring a Security Consultant

Say I am opening my own company which processes/transmits/stores payment cards information. What should I look for when trying to hire a consultant to help my company become PCI-DSS compliant?

The follow up question would be:

What other International Security Standards should I be aware of?

Answer 1

I would say that yes, this question can be on-topic - IF it's worded carefully.

Obviously you dont want to be soliciting offers or recommendations - anyway SE specifically rejects product (or service) recommendations requests.
Also you don't want to give a platform for bias, on the other hand you do want sufficient context - "security consultant" can refer to numerous, very different types of people.

When it comes to product/service selection, it is a tricky path, but I think a really good, constructive question can be made.
As examples, see some of these questions that basically are asking HOW to select a product, similar to your question:

• Criteria for Evaluating Static Analysis Tools
• What features do you look for in an Enterprise Log Management solution?
• Criteria for Selecting an HSM (okay, that one was mine...)

EDIT: Actually, I think your question might be a dupe: see if this one helps you... Getting a manual security code review done - What to watch out for?.