Auditor Review

My role involves serving as an external auditor for financial services companies. I audit their statutory financial statements. On a daily basis, I am given a workplan with tasks assigned to each member of the team. I work through blockers and put out requests to clients for support to test each balance assigned to me.

I have learnt strong accounting and audit skills through my daily work as well as through the ACA qualification I am pursuing under this apprenticeship. There is also a strong emphasis on Excel skills and working with Excel, and by the end of my first year, I have become very comfortable using complex formulae. I also gain skills such as communication and collaboration as audit work is a team effort that requires speaking with the client for requests and queries on a regular basis.

I enjoyed my programme greatly as I feel very supported as a trainee auditor as well as a pre-qualified ACA student. It was great learning from Kaplan as they had a lot of resources and tutors on hand to answer any emailed questions when we were taking ACA courses. However, there were times during my daily job role that I felt abandoned. In my daily work, there are always assistant managers and above who are available to help when I get stuck or need advice to carry out my tasks well.

The programme is well structured in that everyone is clear on each step to take towards finishing their apprenticeship, including the milestones as well as requirements. This allowed for me to plan my time and career effectively, as I would know when I had exams coming up, when I would promote, and when I would qualify, for example. This has helped me to take steps to ensure that I was successful on each milestone.

I received support from my employer in going after the ACA qualification. There was study leave and paid-for college and books included in the programme. However, there were times that we felt that the college time was booked too close to the exam such that we would very intense periods of study that were very pressurising. On the other hand, with daily work, my employer does provide the key tools and guidance to execute my job well.

I felt strongly supported by Kaplan in working towards my ACA qualification. During the classroom and live-online lessons, the tutors are always very encouraging and keen to help answer queries and provide useful guidance to maximise our chances of passing the exam upcoming. Kaplan also provides a very active support team that we could access even when we are not in the classroom and respond very quickly and patiently so that we would not alone struggling with any queries.

The ACA qualification certainly helps me to become a better auditor as it equips me with the very crucial technical knowledge and skills, particularly around accounting, auditing, and financial reporting. These are directly relevant to my role as an external auditor and I have observed that as I progressed through the exams, my technical foundations became stronger and I was able to execute my role with greater confidence and accuracy.

There are many extra-curricular activities available. On an informal level, each audit engagement team typically organises its own social events that involve games online or having a meal together after work. More formally, there are communities within my company based on interests, for example a Malaysian network that connect staff and hold interesting events to bring us all together. I hear that there are also inter-departmental football and other sports competitions!

Yes

Deloitte provides the support you need to succeed as an auditor. You will be stretched and challenged all the time, so there will not be a boring day. There is also a strong focus on achieving exam passes, so there are internal coaches and exam managers within Deloitte who help to work with students struggling and generally ensuring that each staff gets the support they require to pass and excel in their work.

I would advice anyone applying to Deloitte to understand why Deloitte stands apart from other similar employers. We all have different values, and this is more obvious my speaking to actual staff working in the firm. Therefore, I would encourage prospective applicants to connect on LinkedIn with Deloitte staff to understand their daily job roles more, as well as the experiences they had. This allows for a very convincing answer as to why they want to join Deloitte during the interview.