Most Important Skills For An Audit Associate At A Big 4 Accounting Firm
For a Big 4 audit associate, a crucial skill is "confidence to assume that you are right," balanced by the "humility to also understand that you could be wrong." This confidence, combined with meticulous attention to detail—the ability to identify even small inconsistencies in large datasets—is essential for success in this role.
Confidence, Attention to Detail, Humility, Thoroughness, Problem-Solving
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Zachary Milano
Audit associate
Big 4 Accounting Firm
Cal Poly
None
Economics
Finance (Banking, Fintech, Investing)
Finance
Greek Life Member
Video Highlights
1. Confidence and humility are crucial when dealing with potentially conflicting information.
2. Attention to detail is vital for identifying inconsistencies in large datasets.
3. Thoroughness is necessary to ensure all aspects of an audit are covered completely, and not making assumptions
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
For auditors, it's really important to have confidence in your ability to understand things. There are lots of times when you run into a situation that seems like you might be wrong based on the information you're looking at, but there's also a chance that the information you're looking at could be wrong.
The two most important skills are that confidence to assume that you are right over someone else, and also the humility to understand that you could be wrong too. These skills of curiosity, confidence, and humility are important, but then you've also got to be attentive to the detail.
There are lots of small inconsistencies that happen when you're dealing with super large amounts of information. Being able to pick out those small inconsistencies and identify them is crucial. Don't just gloss over them thinking the other 90 entries on the page were all right, so the last 10 are going to be correct.
You also have to be able to look and maybe realize that the last 10 entries aren't even there. You need to have that thoroughness.
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