Recruiting the Right Junior Auditor : a Human Resource Perspective

Sammanfattning: Employee turnover has long been an issue within the audit profession and is generally considered to have a negative impact on auditing firms. As auditing firms rely on the skills and knowledge of their employees, the recruitment process is crucial in order to appoint candidates who will benefit the firm. Previous research has studied the turnover within audit firms, where the majority of the studies have focused on why employees choose to leave. While previous research mainly focuses on the individual’s perspective, the purpose of this thesis will be to explore how audit firms’ HR-departments work with the recruitment of junior auditors from a turnover perspective.  A model that illustrates the recruitment process has been created through researching theories and literature regarding turnover. In order to collect information, semi-structured interviews were used. The questions were based on the created model and the literature presented throughout the thesis. Interviews were held with HR-respondents in order to explore their view on the recruitment process. Junior auditors were also interviewed in order to explore their perception of the recruitment process, and to identify if there were any differences from the HR-respondents’ views.  Our findings indicate that the participating firms’ recruitment process is both extensive and well developed in order to make sure that they hire a suitable candidate. It did not become apparent that the firms focused on tenure during the employment selection, although the well-established structure of the recruitment process might indirectly impact the turnover situation. Our results also indicate that firms invest much time and resource into their marketing activities and that they value the personal competence of their candidates greatly.