Lobke Weijers

PhD Candidate

Lobke Weijers is a PhD candidate in Accounting at Tilburg University’s School of Economics and Management. Her research focuses on the behavioral aspects of auditing, particularly auditors’ judgment and decision-making and talent management in audit firms. She uses experimental, survey, and field methods in her research.

The Expectations-Reality Gap in Auditing – A Comparison of Student Expectations and Auditor Experiences
The findings of the study reveal that students consistently misjudge key aspects of the junior auditor role: they underestimate attractive features – such as intellectual challenge, client interaction, and autonomy – and overestimate less appealing features, including repetitiveness and overtime. Moreover, a larger expectations-reality gap for job content and organizational culture significantly decreases students’ likelihood of pursuing an audit career. Our results highlight the need to improve the accuracy of student expectations to help address the audit talent shortage.
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Human Capital Development in Auditing: A Qualitative Study of Learning Mechanisms, Challenges, and Differences across Audit Firms
Human capital is the most crucial input in auditing. While auditors possess skills and competencies when entering the audit firm, on-the-job learning is crucial for the further development of human capital. While prior research has typically focused on one specific learning mechanism, there is a lack of a comprehensive and holistic view of how learning currently manifests in the audit practice. Using 23 semi-structured interviews, this study provides an overview of key learning practices in audit firms, the differences in learning practices between audit firms of different sizes, and barriers to learning in audit firms. This study helps researchers to understand the institutional setting of learning in audit firms and to identify future avenues for research. Furthermore, this study helps practitioners in identifying barriers to learning that may warrant attention.
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Narrowing the Expectations-Reality Gap in Auditing: Implications for Recruiting and Developing the Next Generation of Auditors
Audit firms across jurisdictions face a persistent and increasingly acute challenge in attracting and retaining early-career audit talent. A commonly cited explanation for this trend is that today’s students and junior professionals are less willing to accept the demanding working conditions traditionally associated with auditing. While workload and work-life balance undoubtedly play an important role, this explanation implicitly assumes that students possess an accurate understanding of what early-career audit work actually entails. We argue that this assumption is questionable. Drawing on evidence from our recent Accounting Horizons study (Dierynck, Marangoni, Peters, and Weijers 2025), we suggest that an important, but underappreciated, driver of the audit talent shortage is an expectations-reality gap: a systematic mismatch between what students believe the junior auditor role involves and what junior auditors actually experience in practice. Understanding this gap is critical for audit practice. If students base their career decisions on inaccurate or overly pessimistic beliefs about audit work, firms may lose potential entrants before recruitment efforts can meaningfully engage them. Moreover, misaligned expectations at entry may contribute to early dissatisfaction and turnover, further weakening the talent pipeline.
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February 4, 2026

The Expectations-Reality Gap in Auditing – A Comparison of Student Expectations and Auditor Experiences

To investigate whether student expectations match with early-career realities at Big 4 and midsized audit firms, we analyze survey responses from 344 Dutch business and accounting students and 161 junior auditors. The findings reveal that students consistently misjudge key aspects of the junior auditor role: they underestimate attractive features - such as intellectual challenge, client interaction, and autonomy -and overestimate less appealing features, including repetitiveness and overtime. These misperceptions are particularly pronounced for Big 4 audit firms. Moreover, a larger expectations-reality gap for job content and organizational culture significantly decreases students’ likelihood of pursuing an audit career. Our results highlight the need to improve the accuracy of student expectations to help address the audit talent shortage. Yet, our analyses show that conventional outreach methods, with the exception of in-house days, have limited impact, suggesting a need for alternative approaches to better align student expectations with the realities of audit work.
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