Outside the box: Where do I want to go, what do I want to do (and how can I get there)?

January is a traditional time for reassessing your life and your future. Whether you make New Year’s resolutions or have taken time over the winter holidays to think about what you have to offer and what you find most rewarding, it’s an opportunity to look further ahead and remind yourself of your options.

Internal auditors are already in a strong position when it comes to a variety of career choices. Do you want a job that adds real, tangible value and is appreciated worldwide and in every sector? Do you have skills that are easily transferable and equally applicable to different regulatory regimes, cultures and national governments? Then you’re already in the right profession. But how you use these capabilities is up to you.

There’s nothing that says that an internal auditor with experience in one sector or one country needs to stay there, or that you need to remain in internal audit throughout your career – the skills you acquire in an internal audit role, and the over-arching insights you have across all parts of the organisation, make internal auditors an asset in a wide range of roles.

The value of good internal auditing lies in its ability to increase transparency, improve processes and offer assurance that things are done in the way management believes and states that they are done. Increased knowledge can lead to ideas for further improvements, prevent unforeseen problems (and enable organisations to react swiftly when issues occur), increase resilience and enable managers to spot and benefit from opportunities. These are the bigger picture and are the reasons why many internal auditors find their role so rewarding.

However, it is easy to lose sight of this bigger picture. People get used to working in one type of organisation or sector and see a direct career path laid out like stepping stones. Recognising the broad benefits of good internal auditing practice and skills is useful if you want to assess all your opportunities.

Similar questions can also be asked of the whole internal audit function particularly at a time when IIA Global is publishing its new Global Internal Audit Standards.

A step back

Before deciding where you want to go, it is useful to take a step back and evaluate where you are now, what you already have to offer, and what tools you have at
your disposal.

Ask yourself some basic questions (be honest):

• What part of my role do I most enjoy?
• What do I do best?
• What is my dream job?
• Is my current role putting me on track to get this?
• Is something stopping me from aspiring to get my dream job – and, if so, what?
• Who could help me to progress or gain skills?
• Could I ask more of/offer more to my current employers?
• Where can I find out more about what I need to get my dream role?

The answers to such basic questions can be surprising. People who have spent years working their way up to senior management may realise that they find managing people stressful and frustrating and decide to become an expert in a specialist audit area or a consultant.

Others may discover that they most enjoy making people and processes work more efficiently and decide to look for a role in the business or elsewhere where they can develop this further – perhaps to return to internal audit with a different perspective in future.

Three steps forward

Knowing where you want to go is usually the hardest thing to establish. Once you have an objective, things become more straightforward. The economic environment has become tougher and is unpredictable, but internal audit skills are diverse and most internal auditors have been exposed to experiences and people that give them multiple options. Skills are still in short supply, so the jobs market is open to people who wish to move sideways or take an alternative path.

Bear in mind that internal audit skills are common across sectors and the IIA Global designations are just that – global. If you decide to move sector or continent, much of what you know and do now will be relevant. You may just need to do additional research.

Familiarity with another organisation or sector is itself an asset if you have been involved in projects that are unfamiliar to those where you wish to work. If you lack some of the experience in the job description, try pointing out alternative skills that you can bring to the role. Even if you don’t fit the job advertised, there may be other opportunities that would suit you.

It also pays to think ahead. Plan how you will get the experiences or skills you need to achieve what you want. Courses, mentoring and job shadowing are all useful. Ask to be part of a team tackling a new kind of audit work, or volunteer to do presentations or workshops sharing the skills you have and learning new ones in the process.

Use your membership

• Look at the courses, forums and conferences hosted by the Chartered IIA and use these to make contacts in the sectors you’re interested in, or to boost the skills you want to develop.
• Join a special interest group and look for sessions that will help you build a better understanding of best practice in important areas such asdata analytics or fraud.
• If you want to move sector, look at the institute’s sectoral groups, for example, those for insurance, retail and construction.
• Keep an eye on the jobs advertised on the institute’s Jobs Board and note what skills are in demand and what is expected of applicants in your target sector or to progress to the next level. They may be evolving rapidly in some areas, so it’s easy to be out of date.

If your ambitions are for your team, the same applies. Once you know where you want to get to, you can identify the skills and resources you lack and plan to acquire them. Again, the Chartered IIA is a good place to start – especially given the forthcoming changes to the IPPF.

New reports and guidance are published regularly and offer an excellent starting point for work on topics from geopolitical risk and data analytics to fraud and supply chain resilience.

Communities and forums will provide contacts who may be able to help you by sharing skills and experiences.

If you and your team have already achieved great work, don’t wait for others to recognise this and offer you promotion or new challenges. Nominate for the A&R Awards and tell everyone about it. Publicising and sharing good work benefits everybody and may also advance your career in the process.

This article was published in January 2024.