If you’re planning a career in auditing, getting a summer internship in an audit firm over the summer is one of the best ways to jumpstart that career. It is also a promising work experience that a new graduate like you, on the brink of your new career, can have on your CV. Here are some of the advantages you will gain from an audit internship.
- Clarify your career path.
A summer internship will familiarise you with the actual world of auditing and with the different roles that auditors have to play in the course of their career. You will also get a taste of the volume and demands of a job in auditing. This will help you determine which of these roles are most appropriate for you given your skills and interests, and will therefore help you clarify the path you want to take in your career. To put it simply, an internship will help you decide whether or not you really enjoy the profession.
- Acquire actual experience.
As a new graduate, you won’t have much – or any – experience to boast of, and this can limit your job options only to the companies that accept inexperienced candidates. But if you are a new graduate with a summer audit internship in your background, you will have an edge over other applicants. This will certainly help enhance your resume, not only in terms of work experience, but also in terms of the skills you will have acquired in the internship.
- Determine weaknesses and areas for improvement.
Being exposed to the actual world of auditing will help you determine areas wherein you still need to improve yourself, such as technical expertise that you need to develop or skills you need to acquire, so that you can be a better audit professional.
- Get future employment or job leads.
Many summer internships often lead to full employment after you complete your degree. You will be considered to have an edge over other candidates because you will have actual firsthand experience in the company. If your internship does not turn into an actual full-time job, you will still make many contacts in the industry, contacts that can help you find job leads in other companies.
- Acquire academic credit.
Getting an internship over the summer can also make you a more viable candidate when it comes to applying to graduate school. Thus, not only will the experience make you better qualified as an employee; it will also make you a more qualified learner.
- Develop client interaction skills.
Perhaps one of the things you will learn through an internship, which you can’t learn in the classroom, is the skill of interacting with clients. Internships give you firsthand experience in dealing with clients, and also allow you to watch experienced audit professionals interact with their clients. This can help you develop, both through experience and learning, your own client interaction skills.
Bill Weston writes on a number of subjects including how to find career in audit.
For more information on an audit internship please visit http://www.careersinaudit.com/