Life of an auditor

When I was in Public, I always noticed that the toughest ones to deal with where the individuals with Big 4 experience - they thought they knew everything and so decided to tell us how audits should really be done and what we really need to get it done - i.e. a lot of what we were asking was superfluous. When I first started - I certainly felt more sympathy towards the auditors than the rest of my group, and was very nice to them, helping them along the way. Now, I've switched gears -and I am now the kind of person who tells the auditors what they don't really need and that it's a waste of time. I'm well aware of this switch - and I can't help it. For the most part, auditor questions don't really add value (was aware of this on the other side too) so I don't really care much for it and either ask them to go to someone else or tell them why it's irrelevant. You sometimes expose the auditors too - by challenging them on why they need certain things. If i...

There were a significant number of positive responses w/ re: to blogging on how it is on the other side after a long stint in Public - so I'm going to try and blog once in a while. I had a lot to talk about during my senior associate years, but it has since dwindled. So I wouldn't expect to be logging in significant blogging time. The biggest change is that you move from a revenue center to a cost center - and for those that started directly in Public, you don't really notice some of the benefits of being in a revenue center as opposed to a cost center. In Public, we are the revenue-generating assets. Without us, the Firms do not make any money. We effectively ran the Firms (well - the partners and senior leadership did, but they were all accountants and know what it's like). In Private, our only representative in the strategy team is usually the CFO. Even then though - the interests of the Accounting group doesn't play much of a role - we're just in charge of...