Building 25 Years of IT Experience to Build a New Kind of Audit at Recruit

Putting 25 years of IT experience to work in new areas of internal audit

Before joining Recruit, I had spent my entire career in IT. After graduating from university in 1993, I joined a systems integrator affiliated with a manufacturer, initially working in systems design before my role later shifted toward building network and server infrastructure in response to client needs. As I became interested in working in a more global environment, I moved to the information systems department of a foreign-affiliated IT company, where I worked as an in-house systems engineer on network and server infrastructure and also gained experience as a project manager.

I later joined a Japanese security company, where I was responsible for operating and managing the infrastructure systems behind packaged software and also served as a department manager. After moving into a dedicated security role, I worked on defining what company-wide security measures should look like, designing how they would be implemented, and explaining them to teams outside my own organization. This also gave me valuable knowledge and experience in security. Looking back, I feel very fortunate to have worked across such a wide range of areas in IT over the course of 25 years.

This career path eventually led me to the Internal Audit Department at Recruit Holdings in December 2018. By then I was in my mid-40s and had built up a fairly broad range of experience, so I found myself wondering what I wanted to do next. I felt that, given my age, this might be my last real opportunity to make a career move. I considered whether I wanted to aim for a more senior position or broaden the range of my experience, and decided that the latter suited me better.

When I spoke to a recruitment agent, Recruit Holdings’ Internal Audit Department was at the top of the list of companies they suggested. I had never really considered a career in audit before, but something about the role caught my attention. Throughout my career, I had been on the receiving end of audits many times, including J-SOX and ISO 27000/ISMS audits, and there had been occasions when I thought, “If I were the auditor, I could probably ask these questions better.”

I also realized that internal audit was a field where I could continue working as a specialist regardless of age, while making full use of the broad IT experience I had built up over the years. So I decided to apply for the role.

At the start of the selection process, I was interested in internal audit and could see how my experience might be useful, but I still was not completely sure about making such a significant career change. Being able to talk openly about those doubts during the interview process helped me gradually clarify what I wanted from my career and become more confident in the decision.

Shaping the right approach to audit for a global technology company

I currently work in the Technology Audit Group within the Internal Audit Department, focusing primarily on audits of the HR Technology business, including Indeed. When Indeed joined Recruit Group in 2012, it was still very much a startup, but it has since grown rapidly. Today, it operates in more than 60 countries and has become a major driver of Recruit Group’s growth.

As Indeed’s presence and impact have grown, the business has also entered a new phase.expectation have expanded beyond growth to include, it is now expected to demonstrate a high level of governance and risk management, together with transparent and responsible management. Given the nature of Indeed’s business, which handles the personal data of large numbers of job seekers and uses AI-powered matching, this means addressing highly sensitive and closely watched risks in areas such as data privacy, security, and AI governance based on Responsible AI principles.

These have also become some of the most important areas for our Internal Audit Department, which is expected to help our Internal Audit Department, which independently assesses the effectiveness of internal controls across the Group. When the current department head took over, we proposed conducting audits closer to the HR Technology business, and that approach was put into practice. In 2022, an internal audit team was also established within Indeed, and today we work closely with that team.

When it comes to AI, we initially started with audits focused on governance. But the deeper we went, the more new questions and areas requiring further investigation emerged. Each time, we designed and carried out a new audit around those themes. Today, the scope has expanded to include the products themselves.

Having worked as an IT engineer myself, I understand how difficult it can be for engineers to respond to audits while also dealing with the pressures of development work. Even so, the teams have always been extremely cooperative. Despite how busy they are, they engage positively because they genuinely want to make things better, and as an auditor I really appreciate that.

The business leadership also has a strong understanding of the importance of internal audit. When we propose new audit themes, they listen and encourage us to pursue them, often saying, “Yes, we should definitely do that.” They also take our audit findings seriously and consistently turn them into improvements. I think the relationship we have today is the result of the trust the department has built over time through ongoing dialogue with business leaders and discussions about what the right approach should be.

When people hear the word “audit,” they may imagine someone working through a fixed checklist, looking for faults, pointing them out in detail, and often becoming unpopular with the people being audited. At Recruit Holdings, at least, that is not how internal audit works.

Our role is to help make the business stronger. We work together with teams to ask, “How could we make this better?” and contribute to improvement and evolution through our own approaches. The businesses and organizations we audit vary widely, as do their processes and challenges. The pace of change is also extraordinary. The situation in the same organization may look completely different a year later, and the people we work with may have changed too. New opportunities are constantly appearing, so the work never becomes repetitive.

At the same time, meeting the expectations of both management and the teams on the ground requires thorough preparation and a deep understanding of the business. You have to think carefully about what is best for the business and Recruit Group as a whole, and then communicate what you believe clearly.

The more audits I do, the more I appreciate how difficult the work can be. But that difficulty is part of what makes it so interesting. You can really feel the value the work brings to management.

Building a stronger audit function through diverse expertise and teamwork

The Technology Audit Group is constantly updating its audit approach in response to changes in the business environment and taking on new themes as they emerge. Because so many of our audits have little or no precedent, I have the freedom to develop my own approach to each challenge and take responsibility for the entire process, from design through implementation and reporting.

That means constantly asking myself what kind of reporting will provide real value to management, and then seeing the work through to the end. I find that incredibly rewarding. Looking back, every experience I have gained across different areas of the IT industry since its early days has contributed to what I do now. I am genuinely glad that I found a career in audit as the culmination of my time in IT.

For anyone in IT considering their next move, internal audit can be a way to build on the expertise you already have while taking your career in a new direction.

The Internal Audit Department at Recruit Holdings is full of people who care deeply about their work. Each person brings their own core area of expertise, but we work as a team to help make the company and its businesses better. Audit is not something you can do alone.

My current goal is to turn that knowledge and experience into repeatable practices that can be shared across the organization can share and reproduce. At the same time, we are actively working to transform our audit operations through the use of data and AI, with the aim of building a sustainable audit model that can continue delivering value as an organization.

I would love to see more people with a wide range of backgrounds join us, so that together we can build a forward-looking internal audit function that supports the continued growth of the business.