What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming an Auditor (Part 1)

Insights and stories to help you decide whether an audit career is right for you

My audit adventures started in a small country in the Asia Pacific and led me to multiple cities across continents over a decade. | Photo provided by the author

I’ve stopped doing external audits and left my Big 4 audit job a while ago. Thus, I can finally write an objective review and reflection on my audit experience. But this is not to promote an audit career to you or to discourage you from getting into audit.

Instead, I wanted to share the key insights and stories that shaped my audit experience and identity as an auditor. After reading these insights and stories, you can decide whether an audit career is a good fit for you. I felt that audit is an easily misunderstood profession, so I wrote this to give you a glimpse of what it means to be an auditor.

The people who will benefit from reading this are recent graduates or career shifters who aim to enter a consulting or audit firm but are still indecisive about which service line.

In the Philippines (my home country), the people who end up in audit firms are those who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Accountancy and earned their Certified Public Accountant (CPA) title. It’s part of our rules that only CPA title holders can sign audit reports. Thus, being a CPA early in your career is already an advantage.