AECOM is a global design and consulting firm in infrastructure, transport, environment, water, buildings and program management (its federal-services arm spun out in 2020 to become Amentum). First-hand candidate accounts skew heavily to two hiring streams: the large UK/Ireland ADVANCE graduate scheme (civil, structural, water M&E, environmental, building surveying, project controls) and the Middle East ADVANCE programme, plus a smaller pool of North American environmental-science and construction-management loops. The graduate loop that repeats across most UK writeups is: online application, an online strengths-based Situational Judgement Test (SJT), a one-way video interview, and either a virtual or in-person interview with a hiring manager or small assessment centre. Second-round grad interviews frequently include a live, in-interview technical task (e.g. a 15-minute flood-risk-management exercise) rather than a take-home. Middle East hiring uses a talent-acquisition screening call before a technical interview with the delivery team; a Philippines-based (onshore) hiring track uses a longer HR-screen -> technical-interview -> onshore-manager chain before offer. Recruiter behaviour is inconsistent across regions and offices: many candidates describe ghosting or feedback silences of 7-10 days to 7 weeks after the final interview, and one Construction PE applicant in the US had a six-minute Teams screen where the recruiter had not read the resume. Reddit search returned useful search-page selftext, but per-post fetches were rate-limited hard from this IP, so US-side coverage below is thinner than UK.
These 9 writeups cover civil engineering, structural engineering, environmental consulting and other roles, UK-heavy, Middle East + US + PH. All of them were posted under a pseudonym (Reddit, GeeksforGeeks or forum handles), so we could not verify the authors’ identities.
Typical rounds
1.81-3 range
Outcomes shared
3/1offer / not
Most common round
Behavioral
Sources span
2021 - 2026
Most frequently reported · Motivation(8), Past projects(7), Competency questions(4), Situational judgement(4), Behavioral(3)
AECOM’s official process
AECOM's own graduate-careers site describes a four-stage staged approach for early-careers hiring. Step 1 is an application review where candidates set out motivation, degree, and extra-curriculars via an application form. Step 2 is an online strengths-based assessment. Step 3 is a one-way video interview where the candidate records answers to set prompts. Step 4 is a final assessment centre or interview held either virtually or face-to-face. The site notes graduate applicants must be in their final degree year or within two years of finishing university. In the Middle East region AECOM describes a shorter chain: an online application filtered by country (UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, KSA), a talent-acquisition screening phone call weighted toward technical aptitude, academic background and values fit, and then either an online or in-person technical interview with the delivery team. Successful hires enter the two-year ADVANCE graduate programme (18 months on the Hi-Potential track), which combines mentoring, in-person induction, technical training and rotations through live projects. AECOM also states publicly that it uses AI-enabled recruitment tools 'with human oversight' and does not use them to substantially replace hiring decisions.
Received an offerGBP 28,000 starting, raised to 28,500 after 1 month, then 29,700 in April3 rounds
1
Situational Judgement TestOnline assessment
After the November online application, the candidate was invited to sit AECOM's online SJT: multiple-choice scenarios about professional-life judgement calls, described in one thread as management- and situational-awareness style items. Passing this was the gate to a live interview; the candidate did not have to sit a numerical reasoning test in this cycle.
Covered · Situational judgement, Behavioral
2
First competency interviewBehavioral
Roughly one-hour interview held in December for the Graduate Water Consulting role. Format was standard competency-based questions with one technical question mixed in. The candidate was rejected at this stage but was contacted again by the recruiter shortly after and offered a re-interview for the same role in a different UK location.
Covered · Competency questions, STAR stories, Motivation
3
Second interview with in-interview taskCase study
Second-round interview with two interviewers. A task was sent in advance and the candidate was given 15 minutes during the interview itself to work through it, then answer questions about it. The exercise tested how the candidate thought about flood risk management and how they would weigh different mitigation options.
Applied to the environmental-consultant grad opening in May and moved through AECOM's standard online SJT plus application form. The candidate found out about the offer roughly 2.5 months after applying.
Covered · Situational judgement, Motivation
2
Interview with hiring teamBehavioral
A remote interview with the hiring office team. The poster reported that AECOM took around seven weeks after the interview to come back with a result, which appears to be a pattern rather than a one-off across UK grad hires in this thread.
Covered · Past projects, Competency questions, Motivation
Graduate Water Mechanical & Electrical Engineer, Birmingham
New grad
Received an offer2 rounds
1
Application and SJTOnline assessment
Applied to the water M&E graduate role in Birmingham through the AECOM careers portal and cleared the standard SJT screening on the way to a live interview.
Covered · Situational judgement
2
Competency interviewBehavioral
A UK-based competency interview for the water M&E position. The candidate accepted an offer for the Birmingham office starting September 2023. Starting salary was reported at 28,500 GBP.
Covered · Competency questions, Motivation, Past projects
The candidate was surprised the first live round was directly with the hiring manager rather than HR. The role sits inside AECOM's net-zero and decarbonisation consulting pipeline: GHG assessments, energy auditing, sustainability studies. The candidate expected a mix of case-style thinking and CV / motivation questioning, given their environmental-engineering background around wastewater carbon footprinting.
Covered · Past projects, Motivation, Domain knowledge
The candidate had ten years of horizontal-construction PE experience. The Microsoft Teams screen lasted six minutes; the recruiter kept the video off, and it became clear from the questions that she had not read the resume. When she realised the candidate's ten years were in horizontal (roads/rail/utilities) rather than vertical building, she wound up the call quickly and said she would 'pass the resume along to a different group.'
The candidate was scheduled for a first-round environmental-science interview in September 2024 in a US Gulf/Southeast office; the loop was pushed to December because of a hurricane. The interview itself felt positive to the candidate, but as of March 2025 they had received no update and the online application status had not moved either, which is consistent with other US-side AECOM candidates in the same subreddit describing 3-6 month radio silences after in-person interviews.
Written pre-interview questionnaireAssessment centre
After submitting the online application the candidate received an email with a short set of written questions to answer before any live round was scheduled. This is a light-touch stand-in for AECOM's one-way video interview at the intern tier.
Covered · Motivation, Situational judgement
2
In-person interview with program managerHiring manager
Final live round was in-person with the program manager of the specific department the internship sat in. The candidate treated it as the deciding round.
First live step after the application was an HR screening call to walk through background, expected pay and interest in the role.
Covered · Resume deep-dive, Motivation
2
Technical interview with hiring managerTechnical
A technical / craft interview with the hiring manager - for a designer this is a portfolio-and-craft round rather than an engineering-style whiteboard.
Covered · Portfolio, Domain knowledge
3
Onshore manager interviewHiring manager
One or more interviews with the onshore (US-side) manager the Philippines role would support. The candidate was at this stage when they posted, still uncertain whether an onshore manager could veto after the technical round had gone well.
The candidate was invited to a live Teams interview for AECOM's UK graduate Building Surveyor scheme after the online application/SJT. Advice from another poster in the same thread was that AECOM will specify in the invite email what kinds of questions to expect, and to treat it as a normal competency-style graduate interview with the usual conventions (clear background, formal dress).
Covered · Competency questions, Motivation, Past projects
AECOM is a global design and consulting firm in infrastructure, transport, environment, water, buildings and program management (its federal-services arm spun out in 2020 to become Amentum). First-hand candidate accounts skew heavily to two hiring streams: the large UK/Ireland ADVANCE graduate scheme (civil, structural, water M&E, environmental, building surveying, project controls) and the Middle East ADVANCE programme, plus a smaller pool of North American environmental-science and construction-management loops. The graduate loop that repeats across most UK writeups is: online application, an online strengths-based Situational Judgement Test (SJT), a one-way video interview, and either a virtual or in-person interview with a hiring manager or small assessment centre. Second-round grad interviews frequently include a live, in-interview technical task (e.g. a 15-minute flood-risk-management exercise) rather than a take-home. Middle East hiring uses a talent-acquisition screening call before a technical interview with the delivery team; a Philippines-based (onshore) hiring track uses a longer HR-screen -> technical-interview -> onshore-manager chain before offer. Recruiter behaviour is inconsistent across regions and offices: many candidates describe ghosting or feedback silences of 7-10 days to 7 weeks after the final interview, and one Construction PE applicant in the US had a six-minute Teams screen where the recruiter had not read the resume. Reddit search returned useful search-page selftext, but per-post fetches were rate-limited hard from this IP, so US-side coverage below is thinner than UK.
What topics does AECOM test in interviews?
Commonly reported topics include Behavioral, Competency questions, STAR stories, Past projects, Resume deep-dive, Domain knowledge.
These guides summarize public, first-hand interview experiences shared by candidates. They describe the shape of each loop and the topics that came up, not a leaked question bank, and every experience links back to its original source. Processes change often; treat this as directional prep, not a script.
