I am an internal auditor, when I asked what is the future of your career? I didn't know what to respond. What is the future for us (internal auditors)?

Few months ago, a CFO magazine survey described the internal audit profession as a dead-end job ! Internal auditors were quick to defend their profession and many articles and comments were written in defense of the profession. The bottom line is, internal audit can be a lifelong career bath for those who wish to do so, like myself, whether as a CAE, audit committee member or an independent consultant. For others internal audit is a bath for a career development for other positions in the organization. Internal audit provides a unique opportunity for one to see all aspects of operations and prepares him/her for another position in finance, operations or even management.

I remember interviewing a new graduate for an internal audit staff position and when I asked him where he sees himself in5 years, he replied: I want to be the CEO!

There is no limit for what internal auditors can do if their hearts and minds in it !

Historically,Internal Audit was hardly considered a launch pad for executive careers in finance.Rather it was often a stagnant pool in which financial types got stuck in recent years though the corporate scandals that led to sarbox and its heightened financial reporting mandates,internal reporting has found itself in the corporate spot light.keeping this facts in mind internal audit is an inevitable part of the organization & it provides internal control as well.

As far as an internal audit professional is concerned,they have lot of career path from junior level to top management level, to achieve such level we should be skillful, qualified and experienced.ie, Internal audit assistant to Internal audit manager we can simply consider this as example for their career path. So the future of an internal auditor is very bright and new generation complex business environment gives more challenge as well as scope for internal auditors.

In my opinion, the future of the Internal Auditing is not wide and diversified, hence a question mark will remain on the career of the personals engaged in internal auditing. For the biginners it usually is a good start.

Audit is multidisciplinary.Same is the case with Internal Audit.Of course, we can reach upto director level and hence Audit Committee.Having versatile knowlewdge of nooks and corners of the organisation, we can redirect to line management also.profession of audit is not a dead ended but  open ended.

Auditing is universal job, so do the the internal auditors.

People do get ample of opprtunities to know about the operations/strategy/policy/process of a particular organization working in audit team. People should sieze this opprtunity to diversify their own expertise.

Think about how you gather knowledge/expertise that would help to build your career rather thinking about what would be the future of internal auditors!

I do not think anyone wants to remain as interal auditors from begening to end of the career?

In my opinion, future of internal auditing is very bright as, in today's environment, organisations face different type of risks which includes internal as well as external risks and Internal Auditor, currently known as risk based internal auditor, is the one who highlight the risks and recommend the actions to mitigate or minimise these risks. In this perspective future of internal audit is very bright.

However, ground realities are very different. In many organisation internal audit is still considered as just compliance verification of policies, procedures, rules and regulations. In this perspective, future is not so bright as companies are developing ERP and SAP which includes the computerised verification of complainces as well.

As i have noticed that many US organisation promote internal auditors and rotate them in other department after spending23 years in internal audit as they have indepth understanding of processes. 

Apart from everything, Only ALLAH knows what is the future of internal auditing.

God Almighty know.

To be a qualified internal auditor you have to read a lot, expand your knowledge and get CIA. Therefore, the future will be between your hands and so you can control it. 

In my opinion, the future of the Internal Auditing is not clear because of advanced in technology  and accounting softwar