№11 — Starting my new job at EY
Sometimes it is hard to come up with a new experience, sometimes it is easy. This week it was particularly easy for me — what’s a better “first” experience than starting a new job in a new company with new colleagues and new tasks?
Let’s start from the beginning, though. At one point during the last summer, I had second thoughts about continuing my career in financial services. There are a lot of interesting projects in that area but after long considerations and discussions, I decided that I want to see other industries as well. Unfortunately, zeb, my former employer, is a consulting company specialized in financial services (and a bit of health care). Obviously, there was a mismatch of supply and demand and therefore, I decided to leave the company. It was not an easy decision because zeb has a great company culture, I learned a lot of things about financial services, and I met many amazing people.
In the weeks following this decision, I embarked on the fun task to find a new job. I had a couple of interviews which I failed horribly. But when I was close to really reconsidering my life choices, I stumbled on a job on EY’s career website that said something about “Strategy” and “Consultant”. I was intrigued and started the tedious process of uploading all my information. Apparently, my CV was interesting enough and the answers I gave during the interview were smart enough to get me an offer — which I rejected.
I thought telling them no was the end of it. But that was far from the last thing I heard. The third-round interviewer, an executive director at EY and head of my unit, called me frequently and tried to convince me. In the end, his persistance paid off and I signed a contract.
Speaking from my vast experience of working there for one week I can say that I made the right decision. My colleagues are friendly, the work is interesting but there is one drawback — the view is awful when there is fog, which is very common in Vienna during fall. The only thing I really worry about is finding a new experience a week. But I suppose that’s part of the challenge.
Of course, this only reflects my personal opinion and not that of EY Austria, EY Global or one of it’s member firms.
Click here to see my list of past experiences and ideas what to do next. If you have a suggestion for future new experiences, feel free to comment or drop me a message.
