Association of Local Government Auditors

The world of government auditing has changed a lot in the last two decades.  Most local government audit organizations have expanded their responsibilities from traditional compliance and financial audits to include complex performance and operational reviews.  Conducting these audits require a broad range of skills.  Auditors are now expected to have strong analytical, IT, accounting, writing, and public speaking skills...to name a few.  To find employees who possess this broad range of skills, it seems that more and more local government audit organizations are following the Government Accountability Office's lead and recruiting from public administration and public policy graduate schools.  However, we face one immediate and obvious obstacle-the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is hiring Analysts, while the Anytown Audit Office is looking for Auditors. 

I know many reading this column are lifelong auditors and proud of it.  Others, like myself, might feel that the title does not exactly reflect what we do, but we came to terms with it years ago.  However, to the younger generation of policy and public administration graduate students-the very talent we are trying to recruit-the word "Auditor" probably conjures up the stereotypical images of a socially awkward accountant in green eyeshades.  They may see a job posting for an Auditor and immediately move on to the next listing.  After all, they went to graduate school to reform government...not to be a "bean counter."  However, their desire is completely congruent with our fundamental mission to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of local government.  Part of our recruiting challenge then is reframing the image of an Auditor and advertising what we actually do.

While I acknowledge that changing the title may be too radical, we shouldn't shy away from marketing the impact of government auditors.  Our work is affecting major change in local governments and our impact is only strengthening.  However, when I reviewed the jobs posted on the ALGA website, only a few made any attempt to sell the importance of government auditing.  This is disconcerting. 

While each of us is fully aware of our value as government auditors and don't need to be sold on the profession or the title, this may not be true of the future generation of potential candidates.  In addition, local government performance auditing is a relatively new and narrow field, and we can really only hire experienced auditors by poaching from each other.  In the long run, this does nothing to help grow the profession or the pool of experienced candidates.  So recruiting smart analytical graduate students, albeit inexperienced, is critical to the evolution of auditing, and we have a responsibility to step up our recruiting game. 

The GAO underwent a major rebranding and marketing effort in 2004, in part, to attract talent.  Obviously, our organizations do not have recruiting budgets anywhere close to the GAO, but we are creative problem-solvers.  For example, could we not collectively use our resources-maybe through ALGA-to develop a comprehensive marketing and recruiting campaign to promote the profession?

We do amazing work.  We all know it.  Now let's do a better job of selling auditing to our target audience-the next generation of auditors.  Ultimately, our efforts will make it easier to recruit amazing talent and benefit the profession as a whole.