One of the things we’re really lucky to have at Audit International is the opportunity to travel, meet our clients face-to-face and spend time with the people we work with.

Recruitment can be very digital these days. A lot of conversations happen over LinkedIn, email or Teams, so being able to actually get out, visit clients and sit down with them in person is something we really value.

Recently, we had the opportunity to spend some time meeting with clients and contacts across the Internal Audit space. A few busy days of meetings, catching up with people we’ve worked with for years, meeting new teams — and of course, making sure there was time for some good food and a few drinks along the way!

What we enjoy most about these trips is that the conversations go far beyond current vacancies.

We get to understand how teams are developing, what challenges they’re facing, what skills they’re struggling to find and what they might need further down the line.

And those conversations are invaluable when you work in a specialist market like Internal Audit.

You can learn a lot from a job description, but you learn so much more by sitting across the table from the person actually running the function.

It also gives us the chance to strengthen relationships with clients we’ve worked with for years and build new ones with organisations we’re only just getting to know.

For us, recruitment has always been about relationships, not just filling a role.

So, while the travel, dinners and catching up with clients are definitely a bonus, the real value is coming away with a better understanding of the market and the people within it.

We’re very lucky at Audit International to have the opportunity to do this, and it’s something we never take for granted.