How to become an auditor?

The general perception is the auditors are an accounting graduate with a Big Four background, which is not true. In my experience, I found engineers, doctors, and IT professionals working as an auditor.

It is pertinent to know that there are various types of auditors each with its own skillset and background experience, e.g. internal auditor, external auditor, IS/IT auditor, quality assurance auditor, etc.

An auditor is responsible for judging the validity and reliability of a scope area or business process by evaluating supporting evidence and management reports with established standards. Identify gaps and recommending improvements along with providing assurance on its area of review to the authority. These authorities could be the company’s management, government regulators or shareholders, etc.

The key fundamental remains the same to be any type of auditor, but additional specialized qualifications can be obtained to match with the relevant job requirement.

In case if you are interested in knowing the scope of the internal auditor, you can refer to my article here.

Let me take you on my personal journey. In my student life, what interests me the most is to be in a function that enables me to develop an understanding of the entire operation of an organization. As a result, my accounting teacher suggested internal audit as a possible career for me, which has proved to offer this understanding.

During the same time, I researched and landed on the Big Four (accounting firm) website, where I checked auditors' career paths and potential milestones. It showed me how accounting graduates can proceed to acquire different specialized certifications to diversify their skill sets. I made a list of those qualifications and keep on pursuing one by one in my quest to diversify my knowledge and skills of growing professional demand.

A brief snapshot of these qualifications as per their specialized role are as follows:

*Any discipline relevant to your intended industry, if not sure go for the safest option business, accounting, or finance.

These are not an exhaustive list neither it is a strict criterion to have these specialized certifications to become a good professional, but rather it allows you to follow a structured approach in your career growth and help you to diversify your skillset to match with the growing industry demand.

I hope this might be helpful to you and I welcome any of your thoughts and information on the topic too, please share below by commenting to help others in their career progression.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arif Zaman brings more than a decade of proven experience in internal audit, risk management, and corporate governance. He is the Head of Internal Audit at Private Joint Stock Company based in Dubai, UAE. He holds MSc in Professional Accountancy from the University of London and a BSc Hons in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University along with an impressive set of professional certifications including ACCA, CIA, CISA, CFE, CCSA, CRMA, CRBA, CPA, and CGA, etc.

For more immediate reading, here are some other articles I have written:

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Why you shouldn't be an auditor . GRC - Big Time Confusion . Establishing Risk Department in 7 simple steps . Future Corporate Governance . Strategic Risk Leaders Conference - Risk Management FAQ. The Pivotal Role of Evolving Internal Audit by Embracing Latest Technologies . How to become Internal Auditor? How to Gauge Audit Department . Do not trust Artificial Intelligence . How to establish Internal Audit Department in 8 simple steps . Corporate Governance . Risk Appetite . Road Map to Data Analytics . Political pressure on CAE . Difference between the role of internal control, compliance, risk management and audit? . Internal audit is a dying career? . Internal audit - Innovate or stagnate . Internal audit insight from IIA President . Auditing business ethics . Business email compromise . Create a risk register in 4 steps . Cloud computing - Internal audit perspective . Annual risk assessment (4 steps) . Annual audit planning process (5 steps) . Role of internal audit in risk management . The impact of emerging technology on auditing . Family business governance . New IPPF 2015 (summary) . Internal audit function maturity curve . Real story - Ponzi scheme 

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