OPINION - Why audit is not boring
The apparently insatiable demand for newly qualified accountants is very good news for those who have passed their finals this summer. Recruitment experts say the current scramble for talent reminds them of the late 1980s.
But when all the euphoria has evaporated there may prove to be bad news for the profession. As the firms and their recruitment consultancies vie to offer ever better deals, the profession risks losing sight of its core business – audit. In an age where management consultants, many of them from consultancy arms of accountancy firms, urge organisations to ‘stick to the knitting’, it could prove to be a dangerous oversight.
Given the queue of graduates seeking to become accountants it is clear that accountancy no longer has an image problem. Nearly three decades ago, John Cleese’s failed attempts to prove that accountancy was not boring reinforced an image which deterred many graduates. After the roaring eighties the problem is no longer that the whole profession is seen as boring; only parts of it. The brightest brains now want to get into what they see as the ‘sexy’ areas of the business such as corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions. After three pre-qualification years in audit most newly qualifieds feel as though they have done enough.
The firms themselves are partly to blame. As one consultant puts it, they are encouraged to believe that they can do anything, that the world is at their feet. And in the good times it is. Staying with audit work in an accountancy firm looks like a dull option, even for those who like audit work. Blue-chip companies are luring people into their audit departments with the promise of a glittering management career beyond, to say nothing of world travel in the meantime.
There is nothing new in this, of course. Only in recessions does the security of audit work outweigh its lack of apparent glamour. But the changes in the landscape are conspiring to make it even more important to keep some of the best brains on the audit trail.
The recent debate about auditors’ liability reflects the growing importance being placed by regulators and investors on the word of the auditor. Some visions of the auditor as the guardian of the public interest may go too far. But there is no doubt that the mood is changing in a way that means auditors will need more than good technical skills. The challenge to the profession is to prove that, far from being boring, audit is potentially the sexiest place to be in the new millennium.
