Advisory is a very broad category of services.  Basically its about providing "advice" to clients or providing answers to difficult questions they have on specific issues (corporate restructuring, tax issues, financing, risk management, infrastructure, anything under the sun lol).  Is there a particular type of advisory work you are interested in?

Internal audit is audit done for the purpose of management. Meaning in lay man term, Me (as a boss) hire an internal auditor to check where my operations has gone wrong and rectify them. I determine their scope of work and what to check. They report to me. As such internal audit is rarely outsourced to other companies being nobody will do such a thing due to nature of job. Its rather they just hire the staff straight into their internal audit dept. Those firms you hear like Big4s are more into external auditing.

But internal audit is a non-obligatory job and if its part of the firm's offering it may fall under advisory.

Advisory is basicly a value added service which centres on advising client what to do, rectify problems and offer solutions. The post are normally suitable for experienced people as they are more mature in thinking and experienced in daily life and work. Do you want a 25 year old telling a 40 year old what to do even if he is a MBA graduate ? Some people can but due to egoism, this is quite difficult. This is where art of communication comes in which are advisors / consultants forte.

One advisor once told me what is like. Imagine a datuk/director/CEO ask you something like "What will happen to my company's profit if I implement this or that?" Consultants will need to think of something in less than 5 seconds and come out with an answer. Real time reaction he called it or bluffing skills. Act as though you know eventhough you may not know. A popular insider jokes circulating among consultants is the word consulting comes from the word "con".

And the first thing to become a good advisor/consultant you also need to be a good researcher. Your attitude evidently is uninspiring at the moment but things aren't easy anyway.

Internal audit is audit done for the purpose of management. Meaning in lay man term, Me (as a boss) hire an internal auditor to check where my operations has gone wrong and rectify them. I determine their scope of work and what to check. They report to me. As such internal audit is rarely outsourced to other companies being nobody will do such a thing due to nature of job. Its rather they just hire the staff straight into their internal audit dept. Those firms you hear like Big4s are more into external auditing.

But internal audit is a non-obligatory job and if its part of the firm's offering it may fall under advisory.

Advisory is basicly a value added service which centres on advising client what to do, rectify problems and offer solutions. The post are normally suitable for experienced people as they are more mature in thinking and experienced in daily life and work. Do you want a 25 year old telling a 40 year old what to do even if he is a MBA graduate ? Some people can but due to egoism, this is quite difficult. This is where art of communication comes in which are advisors / consultants forte.

One advisor once told me what is like. Imagine a datuk/director/CEO ask you something like "What will happen to my company's profit if I implement this or that?" Consultants will need to think of something in less than 5 seconds and come out with an answer. Real time reaction he called it or bluffing skills. Act as though you know eventhough you may not know. A popular insider jokes circulating among consultants is the word consulting comes from the word "con".

And the first thing to become a good advisor/consultant you also need to be a good researcher. Your attitude evidently is uninspiring at the moment but things aren't easy anyway.

Auditors, dying from stress already or not?

I think I have to bring my laptop to my relatives house during chinese new year ady. And I will ask the young ones to do casting for me, mua ha ha (evil laugh).

May i know what is the interview procedure with Ernst and young? i got call from them.. We no need to do any assessment rite?
just interview? normally it takes how long to know the result?

thanks..

Will be joining one of the big 4 after CNY...hopefully it'll be a good time to join advisory dept...last few weeks of freedom!

From most of the advisory freshie collegues, they tell me their job for first few weeks / months is quite relaxing and easy. Its when you reach senior level then work gets interesting. Anyone can correct me I am wrong though 

I know that the rental at Damansara Height is very expensive, but since i am not very familiar with KL, so i just post to see whether got any suggestion or not? Maybe some places that can access to HQ via highway easily.

Although it is a norm that auditor will usually spend more than 90% time at client place, but i am unsure which client would I be allocate to? So, I can't choose my place based on client.

Now i am considering Taman Desa and somewhere around PJ area.

Thanks for the info given by you all.

By the way, will it be very weird if I take Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) program while most of the external auditor will go for ICAEW, ACCA, ICAA/MICPA or CPA Australia? I know that firm will not sponsor their audit staff for this program but since the exam fee is cheap, I think I can still afford it if I didn't go for tuition.

As i am from local university, I will automatically get MIA membership after 3 years. Thus, i wish to take something that are more value added for me. I think that there will have a bright prospect for internal auditor in Malaysia due to the revise of Malaysia Code of Corporate Governance and not many people have such qualification in Malaysia.

Another consideration is the exam fee and registration fee is cheap it is the only world recognize program for Internal Auditor.

damn, what about ACCA?

At least for PWC u need to write 4 short essays. Since I am damn smart, I great success in interview. But the work u have to do will make u regret. In malaysia, u are expected to lick the client's balls.
The client dun care much about ur welfare (Unless u meet good clients). But in general, auditors dun hold much power here in Marehsia. Go start your own bizness better.
And to add to that, dun expect the clients to make the job easier for you. They are more interested in making your life harder.

In Malaysia, yes.  Because there are not many companies that will hire someone just for tax advisory.  If they do hire an in-house tax advisor, it will probably include compliance work as well.  Even then, only very large companies will pay for this role.

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Added on January 18, 2011, 2:04 pm

Audit is not about being right.  It's about verifying whether accounts are "true and fair" within acceptable range of error.

I think Banking / Insurance / Financials institutions are very good to specialise in because tax people in these industries are in high demand locally and regionally.  The variety of products offered and being created results in a constant need for tax input on the impact of the products and solutions to clients and the service provider (i.e. special structured loans, embedded derivitives, SPV structures, investment advice, etc).  Products and offering become more and more complicated these days, and being conversant in tax rules for banking issues is an advantage.  Right now there is a shortage of tax people in these fields.

Also banking groups tend to have many subsidiaries that have a diverse business portfolio (property management, asset management, unit trust, insurance, etc) and can afford to hire in-house tax professionals and justify their presence.  Not to mention banks have very nice benefits like lower loan rates, more annual leave, good medical coverage for you and your immediate family, etc.
@ Morgana_jaya:-

You don't have to be in the TP division or GST division to learn these things.  I'm assuming when you work for the firm, you have a fixed portfolio of clients.  You can see clients that have TP issues (inter-co charges) and when there is work for that, ask to get involved because its your client.  Same with GST.  If there is GST project for your clients, offer to get involved because it is your client, you will be the one who has to deal with them after the project anyway.  I'm sure the TP / GST managers would be happy to have staff do their work for them.

Of course, that also depends on how your firm works.  The firm I came from let me get involve with non-compliance projects so I learn a lot from that.  I am not an expert in those topics, but at least I know the basics to be able to identify the problems and understand what advisors are telling me now.  That is all you need in commercial.  You are not expected to fix the problem yourself. 

Glad to help.  I was in your position when I started out too.  A lot of companies are hiring tax accountants these days to do their annual tax filing and admin because of self-assessment.  This is the bread-and-butter of our line, you cannot escape this.  If you are leaving the firm for this type of role, always check whether you have to do "more" than compliance.  If the answer is "no" then perhaps you should stay in the firm because the future of pure compliance staff is not very bright for your skill development.

If you really want a tax career in commercial, to make yourself in-demand you should be able to address deferred tax, transfer pricing, FRS 139 and GST.  That is what will segregate you from the average compliance staff in an accounting firm.  This is really a case of where a jack-of-all-trades is better than being a master.  A tax advisor adds value by identifying and mitigating risks to prevent penalties, and helps to improve cash flow when possible.  To be able to do this, you must be aware of as many issues as possible to nip problems in the bud before they blow-up.

I notice these days a lot of my juniors don't want to do compliance, and opt to join special divisions like advisory, tp, gst and transaction tax.  I would not advise you to do this if you plan to leave the firm.  Specialised fields limit your career movement.  Compliance is still the core work we do unless you have the good fortune to be hired by someone as large as Petronas.

I heard some rumors about that we cannot enter and get a job offered by Big 4s if had failed in any ACCA paper, it's true?

Is it difficult for fresh grads to enter directly into advisory? Is the normal path audit -> advisory?

Slightly more difficult. Understand that they would recommend you to go audit 1 year first then switch, but going in fresh is common enough that if you're determined enough, no issue there.
Also don't expect you will be the one doing any 'consulting' in the early years. Grunt work forms a big portion of it and no prizes for guessing which level does them.
You are first a 'consultant' (rank basis) when you become AM.

So what do you think is better for career progression, remain in big 4 to possibly reach senior manager or director or to move to commerce which is what people seem to be doing... Commerce gets better pay I presume, but what about environment and pressure etc?