Ursula Jones http://www.careersinaudit.com 2m 570
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
If you have decided a job in an audit office is the right career move for you, it’s possible that finding a vacancy may be difficult. However, sending speculative applications isn’t necessarily a bad idea as you could end up with a chance to see how the office works through your own volition. Putting your CV out there means that potentially in the future you will be remembered when a role comes up.
Audit jobs are hard to come by as are most other types of job at the moment due to the oversaturated nature of the jobs market. There are more people hunting than there are jobs available but this doesn’t mean you won’t be successful! Below are some of the points to keep in mind when writing a speculative application for an audit role.
Do your Research
Make sure you’ve researched the companies you plan to apply to. You need to be able to demonstrate some degree of knowledge about the firm and highlight why you have chosen them. A stock e-mail or letter is likely to be disregarded immediately so you need to know the business. It also helps to know where you want to place yourself in the company. If, for example, you want to shadow a registered auditor then say so and then there’s more chance you’ll get the experience you’re hoping for. A wise candidate will have researched the company and will have a list of questions to show they are interested in finding out more.
Know your Skills
You have already deciding you’re interested in working in auditing but do you know the skills required? Talking about the relevant skills you possess in a speculative application will give you more chance to convince the company that you’re a great option. The key skills for auditing roles include:
- Attention to detail – this is integral and one of the most important skills that all auditing professionals must have
- IT literacy – essential for almost every job you’ll find these days auditing applicants need to have high degrees of competency in IT.
- Aptitude for mathematics – numeracy is crucial for the role of an auditor and therefore you need to be able to work quickly and accurately with numbers.
Other skills such as punctuality, ability to work under pressure and multitasking which are vital to most job roles are also relevant to auditing jobs and should be touched upon when writing your application.
Follow Up
The firms you’re applying to probably get a number of speculative applications a week and therefore yours won’t be alone. If you follow up your application with a phone call then both you, your CV and application will be more memorable. Leaving a week between sending the application and making the phone call is fair and it may give you the chance to pick up some valuable feedback even if the company aren’t able to offer you a position at that time.
There is nothing wrong with speculatively approaching companies and in fact it could be the perfect way of finding your dream job.
Ursula Jones is a specialist recruitment writer, she writes on various topics to help candidates better understand the roles and career options available to them here she looks at the ways to approach an auditing company for a job on behalf of careers in audit.
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