The Head of Internal Audit role is one of the more peculiar senior positions in financial services. It requires technical depth, but panels are not primarily testing technical knowledge. It requires leadership, but the function is often small enough that the leadership dimension is different from most senior management roles. And it requires a particular kind of professional courage, the willingness to report difficult findings to senior people who would prefer not to hear them, that is very difficult to assess from a CV or a formal interview.
Most people who get to the stage of being seriously considered for a first HIA role are technically competent. The question panels are actually trying to answer is whether the candidate has the other things.
What panels say they are looking for
The job specification for most HIA roles in financial services will list some combination of: a professional qualification (CIA, CMIIA, ACA, or similar); experience at senior audit manager or deputy head of audit level; knowledge of the relevant sector and regulatory environment; strong communication and stakeholder management skills; and experience presenting to audit committees.
These are the threshold requirements. Meeting all of them gets you an interview. They do not tell you what separates the candidates who get the job from the candidates who do not.
What panels are actually trying to assess
Judgment, not just knowledge. The HIA makes decisions under uncertainty, about audit scope, about finding severity, about when to escalate and when to give management more time. Panels want to understand how candidates make those decisions. The classic competency question, "tell me about a time when...", is genuinely useful here, because the answer reveals the candidate's decision-making process, not just their knowledge of the right answer.
The ability to deliver uncomfortable messages. This is the thing that is hardest to assess and hardest to fake. Panels will probe it through scenarios: what would you do if management asked you to soften a finding before it went to the audit committee? How would you handle a situation where the CEO disagreed with your conclusion? What have you actually done when you faced a situation like this?
Candidates who give textbook answers about the importance of independence are less convincing than candidates who can describe a specific situation where they held a difficult position and explain what it cost them to do so. The cost is important, it demonstrates that the situation was genuinely difficult, not just theoretically challenging.
The audit committee relationship. Panels want to know that the candidate can build and maintain a productive relationship with non-executive directors who are intelligent, busy, and not audit specialists. This is a different skill from producing a good audit report. The candidate who has presented to an audit committee and can reflect honestly on how it went, what worked, what they would do differently, is more credible than one who has not done it at all.
Commercial awareness. The HIA needs to understand the business, not just the audit function. Panels will test this through questions about the firm's strategy, its risk environment, and the regulatory landscape. A candidate who cannot connect the audit plan to the firm's strategic priorities will struggle to be taken seriously by the senior management team and the board.
The things that rule candidates out
The most common reason otherwise qualified candidates do not get HIA roles is a lack of genuine audit committee experience. Having sat in the room is not the same as having led the presentation and handled the questions. If you have not yet had that experience, finding opportunities to develop it, presenting a section of the report, attending as the deputy, being involved in the preparation of audit committee papers, is worth prioritising before you start applying for HIA roles.
The second most common reason is a CV that is too narrow. A candidate who has spent ten years in one firm, auditing a limited range of risk areas, is at a disadvantage relative to a candidate who has comparable experience across a broader range of firms and audit types. This is not always about the absolute number of years, depth matters, but breadth of exposure is a genuine differentiator at senior level.
The third reason is underestimating the personal dimension of the role. The HIA is a visible individual in the firm's governance structure. Panels are assessing whether the candidate has the presence, the communication style, and the professional confidence to carry that visibility effectively. Technical competence is necessary but not sufficient.
A word on timing
There is no universal right time to make a move into a first HIA role. The candidates I have seen succeed earliest tend to share two characteristics: they have developed genuine depth in at least one specialist area that the firm values, and they have actively sought out experience of the aspects of the HIA role, committee presentation, stakeholder management, team leadership, that they would otherwise not get at deputy level.
Moving before you have those foundations in place means competing on potential rather than track record, which is a harder pitch to make for a role that carries significant governance responsibility. Moving with those foundations, even if that means waiting longer than feels comfortable, means the interview is substantially easier and the first six months in the role are substantially less precarious.
