During my final year of undergraduate study, my friend criticized me badly for accepting my current job. “That’s very low pay. Are you that desperate to get a job?”
My answer is ‘No, I am not desperate for ‘A’ job, but for that job’.
As an auditor in one of the Big 4 firms, my starting pay is lower than the pay from banks or rising tech companies or some local start ups. Payslip is important in our lives but not as much as working for the right job.
In the early stage of my job hunt, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be. I would list down the things I could do, and strike through the things I didn’t want to do as a career. My biggest worry was to work in a career that I might hate to continue after 10 years. As I went through a lot of career talks, networking sessions and a few interviews, I started to learn what I wanted to do. Sometimes, I became interested in the (career) story of the interviewer through their brief introduction and we would talk about it happily. I took these as a good opportunity to learn what I am passionate about. I really enjoyed these moments.
So, I chose this job without hesitation when I received the offer. (This is one of the job interviews when I talked with the interviewer about her passion for the job.) FYI: I am not an accounting graduate and I work as an IT auditor, not a financial auditor. So this is not a cliche choice.
It is almost a year that I started working and I learnt a lot of things in the past 11.5 months. I enjoyed the challenges and found areas to grow. Of course, I am stressed sometimes but I think life would be boring not to have stress sometimes. I would be staying late just like other auditors and enjoyed my working life with my new friends (coz they are more than just colleagues) in office.
So, I guess I am in the right job so far.
On a side note, my friend tried to pursue a lot of high paying jobs and ended up as a desperate unemployed until now. Hope she enjoys the photos of my one year anniversary in working life.