Former daily lurker here last year, especially around June - August time. Just wanted to express my feelings after being so down last year and surviving my first 4 months in my first corporate job.

Quick about me: Graduated with an Accounting degree in 2022, continued on further studies in Business Analytics and completed in 2023

I started looking for jobs just before the start of my thesis. Had a few close offers but due to the schedule of my thesis defense deadline, couldn’t accept the offers because I wasn’t complete with school.

I got super discouraged because I really wanted to be in the tech industry, get into Product Management, Business Analytics, Data analytics adjacent roles but months of applications and I wasn’t getting any offers.

Decided to start applying to other companies closer to business related roles to broaden my scope because I was desperate.

I got super lucky after months and months of applying, I landed a strategy consulting job in September as a fresh grad with 1 OJT experience. I’m not sure if it was the way I presented myself during the case study, my Masters Degree or something else but I am very grateful for this opportunity.

Now, 4 months in. I’m an associate working in a supply chain project, hoping to join in an upcoming tech strategy engagement soon.

Consulting is tough, long hours and learning new things on the fly is taxing. But I think I was meant to start in this direction. The work is fulfilling when I realise i’m providing value to the team, the culture in my department is amazing. Yeah, my pay isn’t great as a fresh grad plus I’m not sure if i’m cut out to be in this career for more than 4 years. But I am super grateful that this can open doors for me.

2 months left until my regularisation and I’m excited for what’s coming for me. I always knew about consulting and alot of my college friends always aimed to be part of MBB or the lower tiers. This wasn’t my intention but I guess I beat them to it. Life really does give you some crazy opportunities but I’m sure i’ll never regret this.

One piece of advice I can give is to just grab whatever opportunity you can get despite not being the initial goal in mind. Applying to consulting was never my goal, but I’m so grateful I managed to enter a profession that some people work so hard towards and I got in through such a random way.