What are the commonest career paths into IT auditing?
The cynical view that audit is where failed accountants go to die is thankfully outdated (although, come to think of it, I have met one or two dinosaurs in my time in audit – no names but you know who you are [well maybe]). Some people become auditors as a definite career choice but most seem to become auditors more or less accidentally. It is policy in some organizations for managers earmarked for Board positions to have “a spell in audit” (not in the Harry Potter sense) in order to expose them to the whole breadth of the organization, with greater appreciation of audit, governance, risk and control concepts, and the passing of knowledge into the great knowledgebanks of audit as supplementary benefits. Less senior people may also be seconded into audit to help out with specific audits and star auditees are often earmarked by canny audit managers as potential future recruits. Many IT auditors came directly from IT (developers, operations, IT security, technical architecture, business a
The somewhat cynical view that audit is where failed accountants go to curl up and die is thankfully outdated (although, come to think of it, I have met one or two dinosaurs in my time in audit – no names but you know who you are [well maybe you do, the rest of us certainly do]). Some people become auditors as a definite and explicit career choice but most seem to become auditors more or less accidentally – they kind of fall into it, a bit like tumbling into an open manhole. It is policy in some organizations for managers earmarked for the top Board or C-level positions to have “a spell in audit” (not in the Harry Potter sense) in order to expose them to the whole breadth of the organization, with their greater personal appreciation of audit, governance, risk and control concepts, and the passing of business knowledge into the fabled knowledgebanks of audit, as valuable supplementary benefits for the audit department. Less senior people may also be seconded into audit to help out with
