Do I Belong Here?
Hi WSO,
I recently graduated with a supply chain management (SCM) degree and realized that I would much rather work in a consulting role rather than purely SCM. Unfortunately I am very concerned I am wasting my time and should carry on and follow a more traditional track.
Let's lay out what keeps me up at night:
- GPA: 3.35. Did horribly my first two years due to in hindsight, terrible depression. Didn't go to the school I wanted and other personal issues really took a toll. Luckily for the second half of college I did much better.
- Extracurriculars: Due to my let's say "clouded mind" I never joined career focus groups or clubs that could've helped (consulting and SCM specific)
- Target School: I went to Rutgers. Yes there are some students that placed into consulting gigs, but not many.
- Unorthodox recruiting: It's October, I don't see many positions available, nor ones I believe to even have a chance at an interview. I graduated in May so I feel like discarded material.
- Experience and personal endeavors: No internship experience. Got cancelled due to COVID and since then couldn't place into an internship or co-op. Followed a crappy job in luxury goods from July to October, didn't work out and I left.
- Major and education: SCM major. Can I start in a more traditional role and go into consulting later? Should I "start over" and go to grad school?
Long post and many more questions to ask. But I just want to see what people have to say and whether beginning a consulting career now is out of reach, or I should dedicate the time to do so. Please feel free to let me know what skills, certifications, experience opportunities I should be looking at.
At this point the lack of success in really anything is taking a huge toll on me to the point I feel I should just give up and severely lower my life expectations. I've gone through this too many times on different occasions. Now I'm prepared to take the heat and just need the validation I'm dreaming.
Thank you.
scm.daddy, pure crickets, that's where I come in. Any of these useful?
More suggestions...
Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.
Honestly I think you're missing out on a terrific opportunity right now with the crisis in our current supply chain.
If you can, I'd go work for WalMart or Ryder Systems or GM for two years, then get a graduate degree, then do banking. Managing through a crisis is terrific experience, and I think you'll get further ahead as a relatively smart person at a GM or WalMart than you would even as a relatively average IBD analyst at Goldman-- right now.
You can always get an MBA later. With good refs, you're in the running for M7, and if Harvard/Stanford is a little open-minded and you've got terrific refs, I think you've even got a shot there in 2-3 years.
There's an opportunity there. Just think about it.
Thanks for the insight. I have been applying where I see fit to the current supply chain crisis. Unfortunately I haven't had a SCM interview since 2019 when I got my internship offer. Hopefully things will turn out ok in my new recruitment push.
Honestly what I would do is spend time hanging around WalMarts in NJ or maybe around a Ryder Systems truck stop.
Talk with the employees there. What are they seeing? What is hard to keep in stock? If you can, talk to the assistant managers if they have any spare moments.
Get yourself up to speed on one company's problems.
The problem that the economy is facing right now is the Mythical Man Month. In order for the supply chain guys to go out, hire, and train people, they have to put down what they are working on, train somebody, get them up to speed, etc.
If you are there in front of them and you already understand their problems, and hey-- you've got this degree from Rutgers-- and they have an open slot and you are less work to go out and hire and train, you're making their job easy for them.
My suggestion is yes, go out and interview, but also just hang out in the real world. Nothing is stopping you from being a customer and wandering around a WalMart and being just a little bit nosy about the back room where the goods are arriving, and maybe if there is some sort of relatively easy solution to some purchasing manager's problem.
Look, today I'm a buyside quant. But ten, fifteen years ago, when I was interviewing for a job as an analytics guy at Lehman Brothers, I can't even begin to tell you how intimidated I was. How weird it was to put on a suit, get on an airplane from the cornfields of downstate Illinois, fly out to NYC, and interview with this investment bank, have them give me stress interviews, solve tough coding problems. All as I rotated through a bunch of hiring managers doing interviews with a bunch of MIT and CMU juniors and one guy from UT Austin. People still ask me if I'm scared about hang gliding-- I tell them nope, my interview as a 20-year-old-kid at Lehman was the scariest thing I've ever done.
Work gets easier and a lot less intimidating with time, although there is always that one psychopathic boss out there laying in wait-- but that is what quitting is for. And right now, the country needs workers. It needs people in the supply chain. You'll do fine, you'll advance quickly and get paid well right now, and you'll build up some savings. What you do with that money after that is up to you.
Relax. Yes, apply to jobs, but also have your worker mentality in the real world. Every major corporation in the business of getting goods and materials to consumers or other businesses has supply chain issues-- from WalMart to US Steel. Look for real life problems and think about how you would solve them and then see if you can find a firm that will give you the opportunity you need to solve their problems for them. That's all. It should be natural and easy. Let's not make this harder than it needs to be.
I mean, my experience at a bank is that you have a bunch of Harvard Yale and even some Princeton guys who think economies run on magic and it's all MMT.
And then you've got some U of C and Northwestern guys who say, Erm, no not really. Here's what we need to focus on, Harvard guys.
And then you've actually got the people who get their hands dirty and have the gumption to speak truth to power. "Hey oil trader. How do you intend to take delivery on 100,000 contracts at Cushing? Cause the pipelines are all booked. How many semis is that, and should I start booking them now, or do you want to reduce your position?"
And, just speaking as a trader, that's usually the sort of operational insight that makes or saves people a lot of money on a trade. Since you shared that insight with Yale, he will try to steal all of the credit for it. So next time share it with U of C or Northwestern or Berkeley, or if you're desperate, Princeton (lol). But the point is you need real life people with real life experience with Big Ten degrees sitting on banking teams and sitting on trading desks, asking these sorts of basic questions that oftentimes the Harvard, Yale, and sometimes even Stanford and MIT guys are completely aloof to.
Spend 2-3 years at GM, then get an MBA or lateral to a startup, then go be an associate in investment banking. If it were 2010, I might have had a different answer, but the supply chain desperately needs people working on stuff, and having direct hands-on opportunities is not such a terrible place for you to be right now when you look at a 30-year career outlook, even relative to being an analyst at JPM or GS.
This is one of the best economies for normal, everyday hardworking people since the 1980s. And having been a normal, hardworking IT/analytics/"strats" guy early in my career who eventually lateraled into being a hedge fund systematic strategies quant, I am in love with that idea. I still use the knowledge and experience I picked up as an analytics guy every day.
Go get your hands dirty on supply chain issues! You'll thank me in a year, you'll thank me when you do your MBA, you'll thank me when you're on the sellside, and you'll thank me when you're doing PE.
You mentioned your story at the end there. I'm a student and that feels relevant to my situation. Can I pm you? If not no worries.
Sure why not. Your question may be above my paygrade, though, so if you don't hear back I'm not ignoring you or anything.
I appreciate the reply. If you asked me a couple days ago, my thought process was to make or break into consulting. But as I ponder on the subject, I realized there is a lot more to it than just landing the role now. The experience I can get being hands on in an industry is something I've always enjoyed and prided myself in. As a Big Ten graduate, nothing makes me happier than seeing among my friends how the B10 sort of has that chip on their shoulder. Because we know we're capable, but we just need an opportunity to arise. And all of that backhanded notions we got from the Ivy kids just made us embrace what we know and wait for our turn to shine. Especially as a Jersey kid going to Rutgers, we all joked that we're "built different" and gritty af coming from the grimy armpit of America like so many people joke. But in reality, it made us who we are.
Unfortunately prior to my new SCM recruitment push I recently started, I haven't had an interview since I accepted my eventually cancelled internship back in 2019. But hopefully this time around it'll be more successful.
Second what the above comments are saying - find a supply chain role for now, you can very easily lateral over to SCM consulting after 2 years or head to MBA to pursue a different path. No giving up required, you're not at all far off from what you want you just need a year or two of experience.
Its common to ask such questions if you "belong here." We always doubt our own abilities but the best thing you can do is to push yourself as hard as possible. MJ got cut from his high school team, Kobe placed badly in the NBA draft.
Thank you for the reassuring words. I reevaluated my mentality on the whole situation and will surely use my efforts as a key to success.
Get scrappy. Make it happen. I agree with pretty much everyone on this thread. Go talk to some managers at Walmart in fucking Bayonne or Secaucus and see what's good. Get scrappy, find problems, offer those solutions to Walmart, then record that on your CV and send those rezees out. Being a professional is about believing in yourself… nobody can do that for you. Once you've established that, you'll figure it out. When I was in between schools because I fucked up, I ended up working with my brothers girls friends family business. I positioned myself as a strategic advisor, found opportunity, drafted plan of execution, than aided in the execution. Ultimately grew revenues about $390k and the family was forever grateful for my help and I got a sick thing to talk about in interviews along with a letter of rec. You have a similar opportunity banging in your face with this supply chain crisis
I just wanted to follow up and see how things worked out. Did you land somewhere?
Honestly, right now, given where the economy and the country is heading, I honestly think there is more money and better experience in SCM than on Wall Street. That's not to rule out a Wall Street career at all, just to say that the balance of economic power in this country is seriously shifting towards everyday Joes who can solve problems and get stuff where it needs to be when it needs to be there, and away from Stanford MBAs and Ivy League QRs (heck, even Big Ten QRs).
Hope you're doing well. If you're willing to work and solve problems and get stuff where it needs to be, you deserve to be doing well.
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