The successful AUD personality

What does it take to pass the AUD section? One answer is your personality. Have you ever taken a Myers Briggs type indicator quiz? Most people can look at the Myers Briggs chart and figure out their type. The primary difference in accountants is the way you prefer to take in information. Highly sensing types tend to like accounting information to be exact and match expectations in a logical order with solid black and white answers. This person makes a good auditor up to a point. They are sticklers for doing every step of an audit program from planning activities through testing. They have a meticulous attention to detail. When data is out of place, this person freezes because it does not match concrete expectations. This personality trait will have you succeed on the skills that use remembering, understanding and application. But the highly intuitive personality is the person who can accept messy data, mistakes, errors, and misapplication of judgment. This type sees patterns in data and can visualize abstract ideas. This type of personality will succeed in the higher level of skills such as finding errors, analyzing data, projection of risk, employing skepticism, and has strong analytical skills that evaluate and form opinions with confidence. Many (85%) audit staffers are ISTJ and work well with routine audits. The rest are INTJ (15%) audit managers and those that find the big hidden misappropriations.

Is your type a “sensing” person? Then you will need to reinforce the analytical and evaluation  tasks from the CPA Exam Blueprint. Look for the tasks that require risk assessment and drill, baby drill. Practice finding errors and problem solving. Practice skepticism in SIM exercises. Try to predict the answer before doing the work to get to the answer.

Is your type an “intuitive” person? Then you will need to pay meticulous attention to detail and step by step procedures. You tend to jump to the answer without doing the work. Practice the recall, understanding and application representation tasks and drill, baby drill. Regardless of sensing or intuitive type almost all auditors are “thinking” types that use logic, analysis, and objective criteria to form opinions as an auditor. Those few with “feeling” will work well in NFPs and NGOs. Auditors are also naturally “Judging” types and prefer structures like documenting work as planned, applying SEC rules, and adhering to deadlines. If you are a perceptive type as opposed to judging then you tend to procrastinate, so keep your options open.

Your personality preferences have so far directed you to succeed in your accounting classes. So, you are swimming downstream already. Do an assessment of how you process information and counter it with more time on task doing MC questions and SIM tasks depending on your personality.

AUD Mindfulness Check list:

• Meticulous attention to detail
• High degree of integrity and ethics
• Technology skills with data analytics
• Analytical skills and risk assessment
• Maturity to make judgments and decisions.
• Professional skepticism
• Business acumen