Describe a difficult auditing project and how you overcame it.
"I've never worked as an auditor on a project, but in school, we had an auditing project and for the final, our teacher had us simulate the timeline of a real time audit. This means we were given a massive amount of data with a deadline of two weeks, and some of the data was held back until three days before it was due. This simulates how the world of auditing works. It's a lot of hurry up and wait, then sprint to the finish line."
This is an important question not only to demonstrate how you handled a difficult project but also because auditing is a very confidential field of work. Most auditors have to sign an NDA or non-disclosure agreement because what auditors are reviewing will generally inform investors whether or not they should invest in the company.
It's important to know how to how to be discreet while also providing the interviewer what they want to know. A good way to do this is not to mention which company you're talking about. This becomes harder when you have little work experience, but that's where you be vague about the type of audit you worked on. It's also good to mention the NDA you signed to show that you take your commitments seriously.
"When I worked for one of my previous companies, they had just gone public and had no auditing department. I had a little experience from a previous position and offered to take a look when we failed the first audit we undertook. I found that lack of internal controls and documentation was the root cause. I then had to create the entire auditing department. This lead to my promotion as Internal Audit Director. I hired a team and we got the company back on track. It was by far the most stressful and difficult project I've ever had to undertake because of my limited experience, and the company's budget for hiring was small."
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