Use LinkedIn to get an IT Audit job

If you’re looking for an IT Audit job, here’s how to use LinkedIn to get noticed.

In a nutshell, you need to enhance your LinkedIn profile so that everyone knows you’re working hard at learning IT auditor skills.

If you’re already working as an IT auditor, use these suggestions to get noticed more and move ahead (or into another company with more opportunities).

The idea behind these suggestions is to ensure that your profile gets noticed by recruiters looking for IT auditors. That requires you to have certain key terms in your profile.

If you are new to IT audit or want to break into that field, make sure you also check out my related posts at the end of this article.

Warnings

A) Everything you add to your profile, especially based on this article, MUST BE TRUE.

Don’t say that you’re doing things if you’re not. If you lie on LinkedIn or your resume, you’re obviously not cut out to be an auditor. Become a fisherman instead; integrity is critical to internal audit.

B) And if you’re employed in any position, think about whether you can afford to note on your LinkedIn profile that you’re looking for another job.

Good managers care about their people and will help them move to a different position, inside or outside the current company. Hopefully you can discuss your goals with your manager, and your manager will support you. If not, be careful.

Strengthen Your Profile

My suggestions, in order of importance…

1) Change your current LinkedIn profile title from “x” to “x/IT Auditor”. For example, if your current profile title is Information Security Analyst, change it to Information Security Analyst/IT Auditor. This works best if you’re in a job related to IT or audit, like Compliance, Privacy, Security, Help Desk, Networking, Disaster Recovery, Programming, Risk Management, etc.

After the bullets that describe your current job, add a bullet that says something like: “Building IT Auditor skills”.

If you’re not sure which skills you need, see suggestions 6) and 7) below), as well as my posts What IT Auditors Ought to Know – and Don’t, IIA Basics for Auditors, Audit and IT Audit for Dummies.

Then under that “Building IT Auditor skills” bullet, add sub-bullets like:

-Studying for CISA. Expect to pass exam by (provide a month/year).

This does 2 things: makes sure your profile pops up for people searching for ‘CISA’, and gives you a public deadline to aim for. Make it at least 6 months out unless you are highly motivated. Click here for more of my posts about CISA.

Even though you haven’t passed the CISA yet, you’ll have the edge of the next gal who doesn’t indicate that she is working on the certification.

-Studying Active Directory, virtualization, cloud security, and ISO 27001 (or whatever subjects you are studying/researching/playing with–these are just examples, not targets every auditor needs to aim for).

-Learning Excel PowerPivot, Excel Power Query, ACL, and Power BI (you are working on learning the tools auditors and data analysts use, aren’t you?).

-Joined ISACA in 2016, and attend monthly meetings (or whatever; you get the idea).

It is critical to get IT Auditor in your title and get CISA on your profile, even if you’re only studying!

Current Job Not Related to IT or Audit?

Now if your current job isn’t even related to IT audit (you’re a sales clerk, customer service representative, or a plumber), you don’t want to add IT Auditor to your title. If that’s the case, I’d suggest adding another position (under LinkedIn’s Experience area) called “Looking to move into IT audit”, and configure it as “I currently work here” as you can have multiple ‘jobs’ that are active.

Then follow the rest of the advice above and explain in bullet points how you are working toward becoming an IT auditor.

Certifications and Buzzwords

2) If you have a certification or training that pertains to IT, security, audit, project management, etc., explain how you used that in your job. For example, what projects did you apply your Lean Six Sigma skills? What were the results? “Reduced errors by 30%”, etc.

3) Likewise, get other IT Audit buzzwords in your profile by giving examples of things you did. If you ever reviewed who had access to a system or folder, list that. If you developed a policy, name a couple of them. What standards and best practices? What exceptions? How did you ensure compliance?

Get those buzzwords in your profile by answering those kind of questions, but keep it short and sweet as possible. Sometimes you can’t do that, but that’s OK here and there.

Fix Typos and Acronyms

4) Fix typos. Have 2 other people read through your profile for errors, then fix them.

5) Don’t use acronyms that are not common to IT or audit unless you explain them. It’s always better to write them out, and then put them in parentheses afterwards. You need both because some recruiters search for one or the other.

Search for Skills, Interact with Others

6) Search for people in internal audit and risk management in your target companies to see what skills they are looking for; notice what common skills in each person in that company in those positions, and that’s what the company values. Focus on those skills and configure LinkedIn to ‘follow’ those companies.

Also, note what LinkedIn groups those people are in and join a couple of them.

7)  Start talking to others in the LinkedIn groups you belong to by posting comments on articles and questions posted by the group. Try contacting a few key people from the group. They are more likely to respond if they have seen your name in comments AND if you have a decent, interesting profile.

Get Recommended

8) Get more LinkedIn recommendations from people who know you and/or your work.

The easiest way is to ask someone for a recommendation, and tell them you will draft something for them that they can use as they see fit. This sounds unethical, but if you are brutally honest in your draft, all you have done is lead the horse to water. You’ve helped someone tell the truth about you.

(By the way, I also do this for people that serve as a reference for me when I’m looking for a new job. Then they don’t have to think, and you know what they will tell interviewers. No one has ever complained when I’ve done either of these. In fact, they love it as you have done their work for them).

Shoot for 1 recommendation per job listed, and more is better, even if when that job doesn’t relate to IT audit. Several recommendations show that you excel everywhere you work.

Let me know how you’ve implemented these suggestions, the outcome, and any questions or other ideas you have…

Other posts for your consideration

New IT Auditors Should Start Here (list of good IT audit posts on this blog)

How to get an IT Audit job with little or no experience

 

 

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