The Audit Agony Aunt

Sections

  • Making it Personal: Internal Audit Beyond Your Organisation

    Outside of your Internal Audit work sphere, in the social arena, what do you respond to the inaugural, ‘what do you do for a living?’. 
  • What’s New in Audit: Budding Careers and Buoyant Futures

    For all her thirty plus years in audit, Our Audit Agony Aunt has seldom felt such a thrilling buzz around the buoyancy of audit careers. Find out what is making waves in the industry and why she thinks a career in audit is a great pathway to be on right now.
  • The Softer Side of Auditing

    Gone are the days of auditing being hard skills-driven, perpetuating the stereotype of the nerdy, possibly boring, left-brain dominated professional. Beyond entry level, to complete the rounded audit skillset and secure promotion, the fuel of audit career progress is dominated by the power of sof...
  • How to Stay Motivated During Your Job Search

    Some of you will have been fortunate enough to have moved swiftly and effortlessly between jobs, perhaps even headhunted, without any formal job search. For most of us though, at some point or other, we will be in active job-seeking mode. So, how do you stay motivated?
  • Has Work-Life Balance Finally Become Life-Work Balance?

    It would be easy to give a list of tips to improve work-life balance – but surely the place to start is discerning what work-life balance actually is, and whether ‘life-work’ balance would be a more appropriate moniker in the twenty-first century.
  • The Future is Now: Auditor Skills and Competencies, to Infinity and Beyond

    Join Carol McLachlan, our Audit Agony Aunt, for a whistlestop tour of the skills and competencies that you need as an auditor in order to stay ahead of the competition in 2022, and beyond.
  • Should You Change Audit Job in 2022?

    There’s no denying that we're currently in a ‘candidate-driven market’ where the demand for audit, assurance, risk and compliance professionals is comfortably buoyant. But from a career-perspective, is it the right time to be changing jobs? Let’s consider…
  • Audit Advice from my Future Self

    What advice would you give to your younger self when you were just starting out in Audit? We asked Carol McLachlan, our Audit Agony Aunt and qualified accountant with over 20 years of experience, what she would tell her fledgling self about a career in audit.
  • Back to the Future: Hybrid Auditing, the Best of all Worlds?

    Nobody really pretends (or ever did) that virtual is better than face to face: it’s simply different. And like many aspects of work and life, we are growing to embrace and indeed love the opportunities of the new hybrid world. And that of course applies to audit.
  • The Auditor Dossiers - Profile 4: Audit and Assurance Big 4 apprenticeship

    When Dalian Paul qualifies as an ACA, in around 3½ years’ time, not only will he have dodged the dreaded student debt, he will have been earning for 5 years, visited around 50 different organisations, built relationships...
  • The Auditor Dossiers - Profile 3: The Quality Assurance Professional

    Jane’s story provides a valuable case study for identifying personal motivators, finding a passion and then carving out a career in a service that she really cares about. So, let’s find out how she has gone about it…
  • The Auditor Dossiers - Profile 2: The Audit Senior

    Claire was just coming up to the end of her ACA training contract when we first met. I wanted to find out how she had made her initial career decision on graduating and how she had found the experience of working in a smaller, local firm...
  • The Auditor Dossiers - Profile 1: Big Four Audit Director

    AG is your complete audit specialist. External audit is what she does, has always done and even after twenty years of honing her expertise, audit, remains, to this day, her professional passion. As a big four audit director, her technical abilities in audit and financial reporting compliance and...
  • The Auditor Dossiers: Profiles & Interviews

    The Audit Agony Aunt, Carol McLachlan, interviews four different audit professionals at different stages of their careers. Read their candid interviews and advice for newcomers to the profession.
  • Audit Advantage: Self Esteem

    Self confidence, self belief, self regard, self assurance, self worth and self efficacy. We’ve discussed all of these previously on these pages. But how are they different from self esteem and why does self esteem merit its own article?
  • Audit Advantage: Project Management, the Life Blood of Auditing

    Audits are projects. From the most junior trainee up to director or partner level, we all manage projects or aspects of projects in some shape or form.
  • Audit Advantage: Meetings - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

    Meetings…the bread and butter of our business; the glue that holds together our organisations; grist to the mill for each and every one of us!
  • Audit Advantage: Impact

    You need to make an ‘impact’ with your CV, at a job interview or when you are doing a presentation, this, we all know. But have you thought about all the other instances where impact matters?
  • Audit Advantage: Self Management - me, myself and I

    Self management is one of the four fundamental quadrants of Emotional Intelligence, which is as, if not more, important to personal success than IQ.
  • Audit Advantage: Communication Styles and Flexibility, THE 21st Century Core Competency

    Communication skills are important in every career, but for auditing they are a fundamental competence, critical for accurately and effectively collecting, interpreting and disseminating information.