In the course of my travels, the most common question I get is “How do you become an ISO auditor?” This is an interesting job, it has its benefits, and there is an excellent chance that it could lead somewhere if you want it to. A further blog post will be written later on the issue of “why” you would want to do this. For now we will worry about “how.”
Keep in mind that this assuming that you will use Exemplar Global to administer your program. There are other accreditation bodies that will do this, and the actual requirements may differ slightly depending on who does this for you.
There is an ISO standard, ISO19011, which actually outlines the specific requirements for being an ISO auditor.
Decide your Aspiration Level
I would assume that you want to be one of the ISO lead auditors that gets paid for going around to do ISO audits (like me). There are other levels of auditor, including internal auditor, associate auditor, “Principal Auditor” whatever that is, and these require less hoop jumping, but in order to be qualified to work for a registrar and do ISO audits, the lead auditor certification is the one you want.
Get Some Work Experience
Needless to say, I think, you as a prospective ISO auditor need to have some work experience before even thinking about this. From the customer’s and registrar’s point of view, they probably don’t want someone right out of high school to be their auditor, because the integrity of the system is about a third party person, knowledgeable in a given industry to do their audit.
Therefore the minimum qualification for doing this is 4 years of work experience to be the lead auditor. Note: Two of these years have to be in some sort of “QMS Function” and this is subject to interpretation. If you have a job title like “quality technician” it is easy. If you are in some kind of activity where you negotiate specifications with customers or suppliers, i.e. technical sales or something similar, this is absolutely a “QMS-related function” but may take some persuasion on your part to convince the examiner that this is such a function. According to this source you may submit a resume for this, and the examiner will verify it somehow.
One of the companies I used to work for is now a vacant lot with tumbleweeds, about to be turned into a condo complex. It is unlikely that there is going to be anyone around to verify that I was the QC manager, as well as the guy that negotiated the customer requirements, both of which are directly QMS responsibilities. You may have a similar problem.
Keep in mind that there is such a thing as the “auditor scope” which we will discuss later. This was introduced a year or two ago to ensure that your auditor has at least some level of expertise in the industry he or she is auditing.
To make a long story short, get some experience.
In my case it was 4 1/2 years as a process engineer, 8 years as a formulation developer and/or negotiator of specifications, 16 years in technical service in an applications, sales and business development role with a Fortune 50 company, in which I negotiated product specifications in specialty chemicals with major manufacturers, and a job as business development as a “VP of Quality and Technology” in a startup situation.
Education
Be a high school graduate or the equivalent, and have a diploma or some similar objective evidence when you apply. It used to be that Exemplar would waive some of the experience requirements if you had a higher level degree, but to the extent I can tell, that is not the case now.
In my case the chemistry degree and MBA may have convinced the examiner. I actually have a real estate license as well, just for information purposes, and in my audits which deal with property management this may very well be considered a “QMS-Related activity.”
The Auditing Course
You’re required to take an accredited Lead Auditor Training Course.
There are different levels of training course, and you have to make sure to get the right one. In general, to be a lead auditor for a registrar, you need to take the course that includes the TPECS which is the testing program that confirms that you know something.
I took this one which is provided by Georgia Tech. A few of the registrars give “lead auditor training courses”, and there are companies who give training, but they don’t always have the TPECS testing, so make sure you take one that does. If you have a registrar in mind that you may want to work for, you may ask them for their opinion on the correct course to take.
There is an underlying rationale for taking a shorter, cheaper course, without the test, thus getting you a certificate but no registrar job. You can get exposed to auditing theory, get some increased understanding of the standard, and that will in turn make you a better manager and/or auditee and/or internal auditor. It won’t qualify you to be the lead auditor for a registrar without the test.
Note also that just taking the class doesn’t make you an auditor. It just means you sat through the class. Until you have done it a few times, you don’t get it.
Auditing Experience
They actually increased the auditing experience requirements since I first applied as an auditor. It used to be that you just needed to be an internal auditor for a few years to qualify, but at this point, there are some additional requirements:
The minimum Lead Auditor experience is from the Exemplar PDF:
Also, there is a complication:
So how to accomplish this? Aside from the options described above there is a third option. If you are gifted in persuasion, you might be able to talk some of the ISO-registered companies around you to let you do their internal audits for them as a third party. This has been known to work, and I have a story on this that I will tell you at some point in the future.
One other thing that they don’t tell you without looking carefully:
The audits supplied on an audit log must be completed within the four years prior to application.
So the shortest career path for someone just out of school would be (1) get a job, and within a year or two get “Quality” put into your job title somehow. (2) Get an average of two audits per year at an average of 5 days per audit in one of the above ways, and have an assistant, since you need to have “lead audits”. If your company did not go along with your plan, you might have to take vacation time to do this. (3) Take the course and pass the test. A further thing to do might be to pay close attention and/or shadow a “real” auditor when he or she does an audit or two so as to understand how it is done.
The Competency-Based Scheme
There is a way to get around the experience-based requirements above. You can have a “skill examination” in the role of lead auditor, in a certification-based audit” What this means is that you have to have a third party audit, as in the case above, you need to be a lead auditor, and you have to have an “assistant auditor” working for you. Then, you pay a “skills examiner” to come in and examine you. This is exactly the way I did it. I went to the local ASQ meeting, found a company that needed to have an internal audit done, and arranged for the skill assessor to come and assess me. The company had an internal quality person who I was able to use as an assistant auditor. The system works.
In fact, an argument can be made that this is the better way. A live skill-assessor actually observed my auditing performance. A first time applicant with the credentials may not have had that benefit. At least I met some kind of minimal threshold.
The Lead Auditor Work Style Exam
This is an online exam, there are no wrong answers, supposedly, and there are some elements of personality screening, ethics, and maturity that most respectable adults will pass. There are a few conflict of interest requirements, but most people will not have problems with this.
The Application
You submit all the necessary documentation to Exemplar Global, above, having the skills examiner submit his or her report, and you have to agree to a code of conduct which is fairly obvious, and at some point you are considered a certified lead auditor. You get your credentials listed on the Exemplar Global website (I am number 105245) and you are in business. Except, that is, you cannot usually go to work for a registrar without going through some additional qualification steps, which I will discuss in an upcoming post.
The Cost for All of This
According to the above website, the class costs about $1600. I remember it being more expensive at the time I took it. The current total of fees charged by Exemplar can be found here and comes to an additional $1400 or so, depending on the qualification scheme. So that is roughly $3000, not including travel to accomplish this in more or less the normal way.
If you are employed in a big enough company, it may very well be worth it for them and you to have them pay for the course for you, and you can be their “lead” internal auditor. This would be much cheaper for your company to do, instead of paying me as a contract auditor, to come into your place and conduct an third party audit, which I will do at a price.
If you are not employed, have recently become a free agent and are considering this investment in certification as a business decision, you are accepting some risk. All I can say is that I have more work than I need, working with two registrars and as a consultant and as a third party internal auditor and trainer. Note: For a price, I am not so busy that I wouldn’t clear my schedule to do a project with you if you click the “contact” button above.
Disclaimer
Since all of this is subject to change, and I may have missed some vital requirement, please consult Exemplar, or whatever other certifying body you wish to use before spending the $3000, particularly if there is some question as to whether your experience qualifies.
Also not to repeat, but there is no assurance that once you get your auditor card, the registrars will hire you. That is a completely different process.
We will discuss some of these other issues later.
