Board Games – Why Whistleblowers Remain Silent
As children, we are told that honesty is the best policy. We are also told that But the truth about truth, is that it is one of the hardest things to hold on to. Society …
Auditing
How to Become a Respected Audit Professional
Outside of boxing or mixed martial arts, internal auditing has to be one of the most contentious careers around. After all, you hardly ever a department saying, “Let’s invite the internal auditors to our next …
Three Reasons You’ll Love Internal Auditing
I am an internal auditor and I love it. Most outside of the profession believe that internal auditors sit behind a desk all day with a 10 key (remember those?) or a spreadsheet verifying numbers. …
Auditors should not be Confined to Cubicles
I recently hired a new employee. One of the first things I wanted to do was make him comfortable with the people performing the processes…our audit clients. So I hustled him from department to …
The Best Audit is Sometimes the Audit You Never Start
How important is completing the audit plan? For many audit departments, it is a key performance measurement used to determine the department’s effectiveness. But wait, I thought the goal of internal audit was to evaluate …
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5 Things Great Internal Auditors Do!
Within every profession, there are certain characteristics, traits, and tasks that mark great professionals. Internal auditing is no different. Professionals can make the transition from good to great by following these 5 steps. Experience the …
Three Auditors You Should Fire Now
The war for audit talent is very competitive. Finding, developing and retaining talented professionals can be very difficult. Oftentimes, bad auditors remain at organizations because managers are either too lazy or too afraid to develop or let go of slackers. If you are confused about what a slacker looks like, here are three types of auditors you should fire immediately.
Three Killer Questions for Internal Audit Clients
Asking questions (observation and inquiry) is one of the most critical internal auditing skills. It allows auditors to gain an understanding of processes, objectively evaluate the function and reach logical conclusions regarding the effectiveness and …
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Data Doesn’t Lie…But Your Analysis Technique Might
I remember working for one audit function that established a testing/sampling population of 25 for everything. If the actual population was 25,000 records, we tested 25. If the population was 1,000,000 records, we tested 25. Although fairly young in my career when I experienced this, my instinct told me this was wrong. After inquiring, I was told
It would be fun to Audit…
Several years ago while building a new relationship with an audit client, I mentioned that it would be ”fun to audit” Carnival’s cruise ship operations. She responded, ”Why, so you can catch them doing something wrong.” At this point, we had a candid conversation about her perception of internal auditing and what we really do. I explained that it is never our intention to “catch” someone doing something wrong. We are charged with evaluating processes to determine if risks have been identified and are appropriately managed via effective and efficient controls. Fortunately, this client was very open to learning about internal audit. We audited several of her areas with success. She would occasionally joke about our initial interaction by commenting that it would be “fun” to audit process a, b or c in our organization. Except her definition of “fun” was not really all that exciting. it was typically coworkers that were a pain in the but for her. Then one day she asked me, what was the
Internal Audit Talent Management – Experience is Overrated
I recently interviewed for an Audit Committee position. As a walked into the room, one of the interviewers said that based on my resume, he expected someone older. He did not say this with malicious intent and I was not offended. It did, however, remind me of
Audit Talent Management…Where will you find your next rock star?
Finding talented internal audit professionals seems to be a common problem plaguing audit functions regardless of country, industry and function maturity. Even in this down economy job websites are full of internal audit opportunities. I have spoken with colleagues who have received literally hundreds of applications for one job opening. However they have also commented that