Written By:
Shrihari Venkatesh
The MIT Job Fair in September (https://career-fair.mit.edu/)
In the first interview I had, I remember the recruiter asked me, “What have you learned so far from grad school?” I laughed a little bit and answered, “It’s only been 5 weeks so far but I’ve learned that forecasts are always wrong.”
Going through the recruiting process is stressful enough for anyone, but it is especially challenging when you are in a one year master’s program. In the first month, everyone is still getting used to living in Cambridge, adjusting from being a working professional to a student and managing their class schedule. Recruiting starts early, with companies coming to campus in September and hosting lunch presentation and info sessions. It’s a little overwhelming because it’s hard to make a big life change to come to MIT and then already start to think about where you want to go next. From my experience with the recruiting process, here are some helpful hints that I wish I knew when I first came to MIT before recruiting started.
- Recruiting isn’t limited to jobs posted on the SCM career page
Len Morrison, who is the SCM career services lead, does a great job contacting companies and organizing recruiting lunches and info sessions. However, this is a small sample size of the companies that come to MIT to recruit for other graduate programs and undergraduates. When you go to the career fair in September, the entire gym is filled with companies trying to recruit MIT students. In addition, companies are coming for different clubs and speaker series and are coming to campus to engage with students. With all these different opportunities, it’s hard to keep track of everything that is going on. I found it very helpful to check the MIT career page on a weekly basis to see if any other companies that I was interested in were posting job opportunities or were having recruiting events on campus. I also checked bulletin boards in the hallways of our building and the Sloan buildings to see if there were any events going on. Even though many of these companies are coming for a specific major or degree, it doesn’t hurt to ask the recruiter if they know anyone in a supply chain role that you could talk to.
MIT Career Page – https://capd.mit.edu/jobs-and-internships/find-jobs-and-internships
- Using the alumni network
The MIT alumni network is probably the greatest resource to use when looking for a new job. The alumni database is well maintained and it is very easy to look up alumni who work for a specific company that you are interested in. You can also widen your search to look at specific geographic regions or different industries. You have to take the data in the alumni database with a grain of salt since some of the alumni have not updated their information if they changed jobs. However, it is a great resource to use and I found alumni who were working at companies that I was very interested in. I reached out to them on LinkedIn and sent a message saying that I was a graduate student at MIT studying SCM and wanted to know more about their company and if they were hiring. At least a third of the people I contacted got back to me and I was able to schedule phone calls with them to talk about the recruiting process. Most of them were happy to talk since they remember what recruiting was like when they were in our shoes. If there is a very specific company or industry that you are interested, the alumni database is a great place to start to find a connection.
MIT Alumni Network – https://alum.mit.edu/
- LinkedIn and job posting websites
The last resource I used for recruiting was LinkedIn and other job posting websites like Indeed.com and Google’s own job search feature. I looked at some of these websites to see what companies were posting jobs and if there were any that I was interested in. I knew I wanted to live on the West Coast after the program, so I did preliminary searches for jobs in the Bay Area to see what was out there for an SCM professional. For LinkedIn, I found it helpful to get LinkedIn Premium since the premium feature allows you to direct message recruiters who are posting job opportunities. This is helpful because even if the job posting doesn’t directly apply to your background, it’s helpful to message the recruiter and ask if there are any opportunities that match your background.
Recruiting is definitely stressful, but it is also a great time to learn about different companies and what you can do with a supply chain degree. I found it helpful to go into the process with an open mind because you never know what’s out there or where your dream job might be.
Shrihari Venkatesh, SCMr Co2019
Student Voices 