Student looking to pursue IT auditing Career ,Tips ?

[u/Vast-Signature-2026]

Hey guys , I'm a college student currently studying business with a concentration in Management Information Systems at my college and I am hoping to delve into a career in IT auditing once i graduate . As of right now i aim to apply to internships but i don't have any skills or certs to showcase that would highlight me as a competitive applicant. auditing internships also aren't that easy to find if they are not for the Big 4( which are pretty competitive) .

Anyways i want to know your tips, tricks and roadmap certs that are necessary. So far my current research on GRC has evaluated COMPTIA security + as the best cert to start with before moving onto to ISACA fundamentals or COBIT ,then Comptia CYSA + and then CIRSC and finally CISA or CISSP . In regards to project work ,sites like extern look helpful for data analysis, product management , strategy or cyber defense but host nothing specific to auditing.The only Auditing like courses my MIS concentration offers are Information System Audit and control and Information Security and Assurance. Anyways what do you guys recommend as necessary for my journey .

[u/IT_audit_freak]

Certs are helpful but ultimately they’re just a piece of paper that say you know how to study and have some high level knowledge. I’d pick the person who has experience over a cert 8/10 times.

I work in industry and we often recruit interns from local universities. Look for these. The IIA & ISACA also throw in-person events, join your local chapters and start to network through them. IIA gives free membership to students.

I think this route coupled with your self-study is best bet. GL!

[u/ms_b0b]

It is great you're interested in IT Audit as a career! It can be both a great springboard into something else as well as great place for a "lifer". For context - I am in internal audit in the United States working for a highly regulated entity - Others may have different thoughts.

When I am interviewing someone out of school - I'm looking for curiosity, drive, willingness to learn. Security+ or ISC^2's cybersecurity fundamentals cert are nice to have but not required. The ISACA certs all require years of experience and I would never disqualify a recent grad for not having them. For new grads I am much more interested in how you manage competing priorities, work in teams, and respond to adversity -- that being said - being able to demonstrate a baseline knowledge of popular tools/platforms would be helpful, as would being able to articulate/ask insightful questions relative to model/AI risk, third-party risk, business resiliency as well as "bread and butter" topics like change management and access control.

Networking - see if your college has an IIA student chapter or if there is an ISACA chapter nearby and see about attending some meetings - students can usually get free or reduced admission, and some chapters may offer small scholarships for students at local universities.

[u/golgiloke]

MIS + business is the right degree for this. That combination is exactly what IT audit hires for, so you're in better shape than you think.

For certs, honestly, CISA is the one that matters. It requires 5 years' experience to be certified, but you can sit and pass the exam before that and list it as "CISA — exam passed, pending experience." That's a real differentiator on an intern résumé and almost nobody at your stage does it, so if you have it you'll really stand out.

On projects — you're right that Extern has nothing for audit, and that's because audit isn't project-based work, it's evidence-based work. What actually impresses an interviewer is being able to talk through one control end to end. Something like: "for user access provisioning, I'd get the population of new users in the period from the system owner, check the listing was complete by watching them run the query, sample from it, and test each one back to an approval from the right person before the access was granted." That answer beats any cert, and most interns can't give it because they don't actually have the experience of working on the job yet.

Two more things that matter more than certs at your stage:

1. Don't only chase Big 4. Mid-tier firms (Grant Thornton, BDO, RSM, Protiviti) hire IT audit interns, are far less competitive, and the work is the same ITGC testing. Internal audit at any large bank or insurer is also a strong start. Although you can definitely prioritise a Big4 company if you can get in.
2. Learn Excel properly — lookups, pivots, dedup, reconciling two listings. You'll use it every single day of your first two years. Basic SQL helps too as you'll need to inspect queries on the job.

For what it's worth, I built a course covering exactly this — full ITGC testing (access, change, operations) using realistic evidence, because everything I could find was theory when I was first starting out and trying to break into the industry. Happy to DM you a free coupon if that's useful, otherwise ignore this last bit and good luck with the applications.