TL;DR I joined Deloitte after recruiting at my top-20 US undergrad. 10 months in, I was laid off with no warning. I'd also been pressured to break company policy. Trying to pick up the pieces. I've reached 6 or so final rounds since then, which all fell through. I'm starting to wonder if I should pay for someone to background check me. I kinda needed an anonymous-enough sanity check which would be as blunt as possible. So here I am on Reddit.

Back in 2023 I was laid off from Deloitte Consulting. I graduated in 2022 and participated in on-campus recruiting that preceding Fall 2021.

At that time, I turned down another offer in favor of Deloitte’s. While I don’t dwell on it, I regret that decision.

In my last project at Deloitte, a partner on the case pressured me to go against company policy and misuse hybrid allowance travel funds provided by Deloitte, and while I initially questioned how it went against company policy, I ultimately went with his decision (my assigned coach wasn’t very helpful). Although, it did feel a little dystopian that I -- a fresh grad with student loans -- was basically getting taxed on ~$500 worth of travel so a partner could penny pinch on a project... while he was yapping about some expensive gadget he was having trouble getting installed in his backyard.

Nonetheless, I found myself rolled off the project soon after. And when I was prepping to onboard for a project after struggling to find one for 6 or so weeks, I was abruptly pushed off because “the role was promised to another analyst according to the partner on the case”. I was let go the same week.

As someone early on in their career, I’ve only worked in a few organizations, but this experience made me question my validity as a POC in the corporate world. I’ve honestly never encountered such a cutthroat, doublespeak culture. I’ve been doing freelance work since then. Would appreciate any advice on moving forward and finding roles with <1 year full time experience.

EDIT: Since then I’ve underwent an up-skilling program, joined a POC marketing strategy network, and part-time M&A advisory/startup consulting under an old boss.

Background from my x-post

Am I difficult to work with?: I don't think so? The engagement manager on the project said it had nothing to do with me and told me to send him my resume so he could look for open projects. And the other, less senior, manager liked me. Although he was a bit hypocritical and overbearing, I actively managed that by appeasing/putting in more hours. I can substantiate this by the fact he was later laid off and then tried to rope me into a Hegemon Financial Group MLM scheme his relative seemed to have roped HIM into. Maybe he didn't like me, more so he thought I'd be easy to manipulate? I can't make this shit up. Otherwise, I was on the University Recruiting team, team for a billable (2 hrs/week) initiative, local office's social committee, and a diversity group. I was also invited to join a group-specific strategy bootcamp the week prior to being laid off. All this to say I wasn't some sort of radioactive goon lol; life outside work, hobbies, friends, etc.

What are discretionary travel funds and what was the ask?: It was a hybrid allowance meant to encourage analysts to work at the local Deloitte office (Uber or gas for driving) and interact with everyone (culture and whatnot) -- I pay taxes on it whenever I spend it. The project I was on was 40 minutes away from the Deloitte office (where I lived near). He insisted I might as well use it because I was losing it soon anyway, which wasn't the case -- I had it for several more months. I didn't have a car so that would have been eating a lot in Uber charges. It was against policy, and I was just finished doing some crazy amount of compliance shit, so I guess that was my rationale. I'd sent him the policy just to make sure because my coach had said that was a good call, to be on the up and up. Idk I'd zip my mouth if I could do it again.

Snapshots before: One average snapshot for a short internal strategy project planning a US Industry Leader's 3-5 year vision; even they admitted it was atypical for a first project. In terms of this doomsday project, it seemed to be on a thin budget. An MBB team had just finished telling the client to focus on data (more nuanced than that but you get it) to bump their valuation and Deloitte was tasked with the business case / framework creation of a strategy to do this. This was Deloitte's first project with them, and they were a large global client.

What does your race have to do with these situations?: On the race thing, idk maybe that was me internalizing all the DE&I discussions going on. It just felt very isolating from that standpoint; couldn't tell if it was imposter syndrome or if I was just a total shithead. They stuffed an assload of DEI rigamarole down my throat (CEO Dan Helfrich pullin up to a diversity summit and getting clowned on office chats for opening it with "yeah my adopted brother is black") but I still lacked any real mentorship. Didn't help that the higher-ups outside of my DEI circles often seemed icy. Lipservice DEI that distracts me from actually being billable is worse than not saying shit and keepin it pushin.