The decision

After my internship at Accenture, I was dazed and confused. On one hand, I’d managed to secure a (very) well paying job that was based out of Edinburgh, which was awesome because it meant I could stay close to home. On the other hand, I’d discovered that I didn’t really have a passion for IT, wasn’t too keen on the culture at Accenture, and I wasn’t sure that I was really ready to commit my life to Accenture’s demands of constant mobility. I was very lucky to be given 4 months to decide on whether I wanted to accept Accenture’s offer.

If I was going to work in Engineering, it was only ever going to be with one firm – Arup. To me, Arup is the very pinnacle of the engineering consulting profession, and everything – from their projects to their culture to their training – is awesome. The downsides were that it would probably require a move to London, the pay would be considerably less than with Accenture, and that I highly doubted that I had the required engineering aptitude to pass the technical interview.

I attended a presentation they held on campus, and sent off my application form in October. Over 3 months and two follow-up emails later, I was finally offered an interview (only a week before I had to give my final answer to Accenture!). The interview was an interesting experience, and I liked the fact that it more informal – I got the impression that the interviewers really cared about the person they were interviewing. In contrast, at Accenture I very much felt like just a ‘number’. The technical interview apparently went very well, and I think my enthusiasm for the field shone through with the interviewers. I was delighted when they offered me the job immediately after the end of my ‘chat’ with the two senior engineers (which had lasted for one and a half hours).

What followed were an agonising two days of deciding between good pay, good location, good company, boring job and average pay, acceptable location, fantastic company and amazing job. In the end I decided that it’s more important to be happy in my job than to have loads of money, and the attractiveness of Arup’s training policy swung it in their favour.

It is, without a doubt, the second-hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life (the first being getting engaged). I’ve been utterly torn over what to do – and even now that the deed is done and I’ve phoned both companies to tell them my decision, I’m still finding it hard to think about anything else! Nevertheless, I can’t wait until I start the new job in September this year.