Anyone Can be an ISO Auditor, they can be internal auditor as well as external auditor, Internal audits are conducted by employees who have been trained how to audit and they conduct audits within the company on behalf of the company and external audit is third party audit.

There are no mandatory qualifications to become an auditor  but certification bodies are required to demonstrate that their auditors are competent -to varying degrees of success.

For Lead Auditor we offer a qualification scheme that requires you to pass a 5 day Lead Auditor Course (with a 2 hour exam)  demonstrate with a CV or resume that you have work experience of about 4 years, that you have more specific work experience of about 3 years (e.g. in quality or environmental sectors that you want to audit in) and then participate in audits to demonstrate audit experience.

Getting this audit experience is difficult for some. Some internal audits and supplier audits can count. Consulting audits can count too. If you don’t have access to this, then often a certification body will allow you to participate in audits but there is usually some payback associated with that. Some less than professional certification bodies will actually charge you to be part of a team that they are charging the client for.

 You maintain a log of the audits that you have participated in and get the auditee or team leader to sign off on your logs. These, along with other evidence is submitted to the registration organization for review – and issue of your formal status as a registered auditor.