On Aug 17, 2012, at 10:04 AM, John Gilmore wrote:
Auditing is not 'boot camp'. All professional firms do, however, make
quasi-exploitative use of their junior, recent-graduate employees.
Everything depends upon how in detail this scheme is used. IBM's law
firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, recruits fearsomely bright young
lawyers from the major law schools---chiefly Harvard, Yale, Columbia,
and Stanford, with a sprinkling from elsewhere, pays them extremely
well, overworks them, and practices an announced policy of up-or-out,
become-a-partner-or-leave. This scheme works well, for clients and
even for many who leave.
Most, not all, accounting firms employ mediocre undergraduate
accounting majors.
(Graduate, professional-school training in accounting is still rare.)
A scheme of apprenticeship training is mostly used instead. In the
upshot the creative accountants employed by brokerage firms, major
insurance companies, and the like are often much smarter than the
auditors who are supposed to keep them on the straight and narrow.
This scheme works much less well.
It is hard, however, to see how auditors can be dispensed with. I do
not think they can be. Better training is, as usual, the key to
better performance; but the current auditing-firm business model
provides no significant economic incentive for improving the IT
auditing function or for staffing it with abler people.
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
John,
Interesting item thanks.
The auditors I have worked with have been untrained.
Although I end up training them myself (at least the ones that audit
IS).
I basically take them through an introduction to MVS and then get
into the details that should interest them.
I make sure that they understand that it is better to ask questions
than to assume they know the subject matter.
The time it takes them to go through the mini class is well spent in
my opinion. You get very few "noise" questions later and if they need
to understand something you take time off and grab a conference room
and explain what it is. I have always been open and the one or two
times I said I am not sure I find the answers and I make sure they
understand at least the best that can be expected.
I am not talking about in depth classes now as I am pretty sure I
could not do them justice myself.
I always tell them if they want to go to an IBM class go.
Ed
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