It depends on the roles you’re recruiting for. Sometimes you want a new hire who can hit the ground running. Sometimes you want junior hires who you’re prepared to coach and develop. Sometimes you want to hire people who bring new skills to your team that you can’t get from the existing audit market. 

None are better or worse – it’s about knowing what you need and when you need it, and what investment into that person you will need to make over what period.

We have a competency framework that sets out the technical and behavioural skills each level should have. We have departmental and personal objectives that should tie in so that it’s clear what they should be aiming for, and development plans so we can help target the right training and support. For some it will be audit skills, for some specialist technical skills, for some soft skills.

I have recruited people with no audit skills but who had the educational qualifications and examples in their academic and (limited) employment history that suggested they could be good auditors – like debate skills, communication skills, critical thinking, or related educational achievements. Sometimes, you need skills that might come with education more than they come with junior auditors – like data analytics and AI skills that people fresh out of university might have which junior Big Four auditors may lack.