• "I really liked the person who interviewed me" - irrelevant, there's a good chance that you won't end up working for / with them anyway. If if you start working for them they can easily move on shortly afterwards. (If you've had a chance to look around the company and like the overall atmosphere that's different.)

• "Not sure what exactly I'll be doing" - interesting point, very often even in a new permanent job you won't be sure exactly what you are doing, and in fact in the most interesting graduate jobs you shouldn't be - the whole point should be to get a range of opportunities and options as you start to explore the real world. But you should have been given some idea of what areas you will have the opportunity to explore.

• "Much smaller company than graduate job (but still a multinational)" - But what do you want? Big companies appear to be stable, and appear to offer logical progression plans, but equally you can feel you are stuck in the machine. Small companies can be chaotic and risky, but also full of opportunities - small companies (or stand alone parts of big companies) can create new opportunities to specifically suit you, but it is up to you to show what you are capable of. So do you want stability (although beware that's often a bit of myth in big companies) or risk and opportunity? Again no right answer, just what suits you.

Sync:

I think one thing I definitely need to do is look at what options are available for me to achieve CEng with a BEng, because I know a masters isn't necessarily a requirement.

All you will need to do is show that your work experience has given you knowledge "equivalent" to a Masters, which is what most candidates seem to do - the majority of candidates I support through their CEng applications have Bachelor's degrees. Normally there is nothing extra that you will need to do in your CEng application (of course, we are trying to use crystal balls to look a few years into the future here!), the only difference is - to put it simply - that the assessment panel will look at the technical knowledge and learning you show in your work in slightly more depth, in line with Roy's post.


This may sound a bit odd but: if you do find yourself in a position where your job requires CEng, then you should be able to successfully apply for CEng! The point being that your employer will only consider you for such a role if by that time you have developed through your career all the competences which are needed to achieve CEng.


So I'd really suggest thinking about a career first, and then CEng will fall naturally out of that if it needs to.


BUT what is really useful to do now is to get hold of a copy of UK Spec (see the link for the upcoming edition which I posted last night on another similar thread in this forum), the requirements, "competences", in there are not just those you'll need to meet for achieving CEng, but more importantly they are the requirements that employers are looking for in their senior technical staff - which of course is why they are the CEng requirements. So they are a good guidebook to the competences you want to be developing over the next few years anyway.


Oh, and a final thought, you may find in a few years time that you decide to move more towards project or other management rather than the more technical side, many do, in which case IEng may be the more appropriate registration category anyway.


Cheers,


Andy