Internal audit, good move???

marbilio

Hi there,

I qualified as an accountant after spending 3.5 years training in external audit. For the last 6 months or so I have worked in a shared services centre as a Senior Financial Accountant. The job is fine and I enjoy it. Although I don't find it as challenging as I imagined.

Anyway a vacancy has arisen in the internal audit team, and I am tempted to apply for it. I was wondering would this be a good career move for me. Ultimately I would like to become an FD or FC and was wondering if a year in internal audit would be good move?

If anyone has or is currently working in internal audit would like to share their experiences, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

ted2767

marbilio wrote: »

Hi there,

I qualified as an accountant after spending 3.5 years training in external audit. For the last 6 months or so I have worked in a shared services centre as a Senior Financial Accountant. The job is fine and I enjoy it. Although I don't find it as challenging as I imagined.

Anyway a vacancy has arisen in the internal audit team, and I am tempted to apply for it. I was wondering would this be a good career move for me. Ultimately I would like to become an FD or FC and was wondering if a year in internal audit would be good move?

If anyone has or is currently working in internal audit would like to share their experiences, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

It's a fairly hot area at the moment, there's a load of jobs in internal audit.

I think many companies see internal audit as a good way to get to know a business as you audit different processes and are involved in areas such as risk assessment and strategy.
This allows you to get a good degree of understanding of what the company actually does.
If it's in a company/sector you see yourself staying in then yes it's a good move, if not identify such a sector and get an IA job there.

jonnybravo

Internal audit is sold by a lot of people as a way of getting into a company and moving on after a year. From my experience of people I've known that have gone into internal audit none of them have moved on internally and have had to leave the company to get the job they wanted. There's loads of jobs in Internal audit for a reason - people don't stay long in them and a lot of people don't want to apply for them.

As a good career move I personnaly don't think it adds anything to your CV. You have already completed 3.5 years of audit work so I see no benefit in doing another year of similar audit type work. If I was hiring someone I would prefer to see them having a year or two in a GL accounting role in a shared services centre than the same experience in Internal Audit.

marbilio

Thanks for the feedback guys. I guess the reason I was considering applying for the position was because I would get an opportunity to see different parts of the business. I know I worked in external audit for 3.5 years but I thought even 12 months in internal audit would give me a good insight into how the business works and would add to my CV.

But I have heard those points about internal audit that Jonnybravo has outlined above. And those points are putting me off from applying for the position.

I will give it some thought anyway before making my decision.

blackwhite

Don't let one person's negative experiences turn you against all IA roles.

I've been with a large Irish plc for a number of years (never in IA though). 3 years ago we had an IA team of 4 - the Head of IA and 3 auditors.

These three auditors are now working as a manager within group (head office) finance, finance manager for a sector within the group (with responsibility over a number of subsidiaries) and as a no.2 in finance dept within an individual subsidiary.
The Head of IA remains there, and now has a team of 5. I'm shortly going to be taking one of these into my team, and I know of plans to take at least one more of them into another division.

Generally the company has a policy of using IA people to fill finance roles within the group as they are needed, and it's very unusual to have anyone (other than the dept head) stay more than 2/3 years in IA.

From what I know of friends in other companies we are not unique in this - it really depends on the company.

Maybe ask the company would it be possible to have an informal chat with someone who works in the dept there?

Johnny_Fontane

I'd second Blackwhite's experience from a recruitment perspective. We place Internal auditors into large corporates and generally the agreement is 24 months before moving into a subsidiary or another role in group.

The other thing to remember from the OP's perspective, that it 'could' well enhance their cv internally, as someone who has worked in two areas of finance may well have the upper hand over someone who has only worked in one.

Generally IA gives you exposure that GL accountants in SSC's dont get. You will probably be having alot more dealings with head office and can form relationships with very senior finance people on the back of it.

Its an interesting decision. What I would do is what blackwhite said and have an informal chat with the IA manager there. Discuss a timeframe of where you will be at in 2-3 years by taking the role.