From Layoff to Liftoff: Pivoting Your Internal Audit Career
Anne Detraglia, VP of Audit and Risk at Sabre Corporation, shares her personal journey of navigating multiple layoffs and transforming these challenges into opportunities for career reinvention. She emphasizes that a layoff can be a catalyst for re-evaluating one's professional path and leveraging existing skills in new ways. Detraglia encourages professionals, particularly those in internal audit, to look beyond traditional roles and consider how their expertise can be applied to different fields, using tools like LinkedIn analysis and the IKIGAI framework.
Embracing Layoffs as a Catalyst for Career Redirection
Anne Detraglia, a seasoned Internal Audit and Risk Management professional, offers a compelling perspective on career resilience, particularly in the face of layoffs. Having experienced this professional setback four times, she reframes these events not as failures, but as pivotal moments for introspection and growth. For internal audit and assurance professionals, this perspective is crucial. The skills honed in audit—critical thinking, risk assessment, process analysis, and communication—are highly transferable and valuable across diverse industries and roles. Detraglia's experience underscores the importance of viewing a layoff as an opportunity to reassess one's career trajectory and consider alternative applications for their expertise.
Unlocking New Opportunities Through Self-Reflection and Skill Mapping
Detraglia highlights two practical strategies for identifying new career paths: analyzing LinkedIn recommendations and utilizing the IKIGAI framework. For audit professionals, this means moving beyond the confines of traditional audit titles and recognizing the broader impact of their work. For instance, if colleagues consistently describe an auditor as a 'teacher' or 'mentor,' this indicates a potential pivot towards training, corporate education, or even consulting roles where knowledge transfer is key. By stripping away corporate jargon and focusing on the human impact of their skills, auditors can uncover unexpected avenues for career development.
The IKIGAI Framework: A Strategic Tool for Career Alignment
The IKIGAI framework—which explores the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for—serves as a powerful tool for strategic career planning. For internal auditors, this framework can help align their deep understanding of organizational processes, controls, and risk with emerging needs in areas like compliance, governance, data analytics, or even specialized consulting. By thoughtfully mapping out these four elements, audit professionals can identify roles that not only leverage their existing skill set but also provide greater personal and professional fulfillment, transforming a period of uncertainty into a deliberate and meaningful career pivot.
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