Darlene -- I'm really encouraged by your forthrightness and honesty before us. You'll be in my prayers as you pursue in faith the exciting opportunities that He's given you. One of the things I learned this summer was vulrenability -- showing my weaknesses instead of hiding them, or putting up false fronts to obscure them. And I can emphathize with you now, and all the other premeds now...
See, like Danny, I'm in job mode now, and it's just starting to go into full blast. And like Danny, I'm going after some startups. Startups you say? What happened to Mark Wang, management consultant? I'm basically out of the consulting game altogether. Finished. I'm packing up and going home to refocus my energies in the main front of battle in my core competency, shall we say...
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice about this prospective "career move", especially Henry in humble entry 51. And I want to especially express my sincere heartfelt appreciation to Paul and Li for your honest support, encouragement, and prayers. (Man, I feel like the coach of a losing sports team speaking to the media after a game...)
So anyways, the Big Kahuna, McKinsey, rejected me after the first round interview. At least I can live content knowing that I was one of the 10% that actually got one. The McKinsey recruiter was at least kind enough to call me up and give me at least some "specific feedback". Basically, she told me that I did well on the cases and interviews, and one thing that I could work on was my "leadership". Hmmm... if I didn't have enough "leadership", then why the heck was I even selected for an interview in the first place? It's not like I can suddenly take on leadership positions in the span of a few days. Couldn't they have looked at my resume and just negged me without me having to go through an interview in the first place?!
Mercer was also a mixed bag. I advanced to the second round, which at least sort of made my day, only to get dinged after that. One of my interviewers, this French dude, called me to deliver the bad news, and basically said that I wasn't cut out for consulting. I personally believe that people should get to the point in conversations, and not fluff things up necessarily, but still, arrrrgh -- at least give some honest elaboration and explanation to back up those statements! And he just said that, and said that there are other jobs where I could be "intellectually challenged." Well, I guess I'm looking for those "other jobs" right now, huh? If there was one time I really felt pissed off during my job search, that would be it, for his lack of empathy alone.
And the other firms? I missed the resume submission deadline for Bain, BCG, and Monitor altogether, since I was still wavering about whether to really take the plunge into consulting interviews altogehter at the beginning of Winter Quarter, so I wasn't even in the game with those firms. I basically just applied to McKinsey because Paul works there, and since... well, they're McKinsey, and everyone applies there right? Just like every Asian-American high school student will apply to Stanford and Harvard, no matter what their dream school, or their chances of getting in, might actually be. Yeah, I'm pathetic. =P
Ack. Sorry guys. Please, please don't get me wrong, this Deep Thought isn't about me ranting and raving at consulting firms and being rejected from them. There's just no reason for me to be doing so, except whatever I make out of it. Indeed, not too many people even knew I was interviewing at strategic consulting firms in the first place -- Paul, Li-Cheng, Chi-Hua, Keith, and of course you faithful readers, who probably inferred it from my last entry about "McWhimsy." Also, Jimmy Ahn might have heard via word of mouth, but I didn't tell him myself.
I realize that there is indeed no reason why I should be getting upset about this. Indeed, two years ago, I had practically no clue what management consulting WAS! When I first entertained the idea of consulting during fall quarter, I knew that it, for me, would really be going out on a limb in terms of my previous experiences and academics. So why consulting? I realize that when everything boils down to the bare essence, when it all comes down to the bottom line - my excuses about wanting to get a big picture, to work on real world problems, and see the whole business cycle, to not just be a "small cog in a big machine" is just skin deep excuses. Certainly, I do have that desire to break out of the CS mold, and not make engineering a life long career, but the driving and motivating force that draws me to the "allure" (mostly false, I realize) of the consultant's "life" that I've thought about is simple: I just want to go back to Asia.
"Consultants are often staffed in small groups in far-flung areas. As a result, the individual must be able to function, and function well, without many of the traditional workplace standards: a permanent working space, the ability to return home each night, easily accessed services such as administrative assistance, faxing, and photocopying, and the camaraderie that develops among co-workers assigned to the same business unit."
Even though I like to have time by myself and God a lot, I am still one that thrives on encouragement, and fellowship by nature. Yet, I still feel the inexorable urge of the Firm drawing me, pulling me. Why? Would I actually be happy doing this stuff for two or three years? Now, looking at everything through a lens of objectiveness, I have to admit my answer would at least lean towards, if not be a categorical, NO. So the Mercer guy was pretty much on the ball, even if he didn't express it in a manner I wanted to hear.
Take McKinsey, for instance. Probably its biggest edge it has over its competitors is its reputation. Something intangible, abstract -- its @$%@#$%$ reputation alone! Companies idolize the Firm to some extent, and that creates a positive feedback cycle where they'll go to McKinsey even in areas that it isn't the best in -- like technology for instance. I realize that in seeking these positions, I was not seeking God Himself in all of this, but I was idolizing the firms (and in particular, the Firm) rather than God, from whom all blessings flow, after all. I too, was seeking that reputation... it got the best of me, despite my noble motives.
From another point of view, Danny and I were recently talking about this question: is is wrong to use "missions" as a career advancing step in the secular realm? If I went on a missions trip, or had some sort of leadership role in ministry, and put it on my resume to give out to companies, is it wrong?
But let's look at the opposite question. Is it wrong to use a secular career as a springboard or a faciliatator for missions or ministry, which has basically what I have been thinking -- even strategizing -- about as I try to pursue these consulting jobs in a search for my ticket to going forth into the world?
If Paul, sometime down the road, opens up a McKinsey office in North Korea as a means of getting his foot into the door of that country for ministry, a foothold which he might have been unable to obtain otherwise, is that bad? If he does his job at McKinsey well (ie, doesn't get fired), I say more power to him. Indeed, I remember during my senior year, when FiCS had a joint missions report night with GCM, Paul gave a presentation about his summer internship in Tokyo, which was definitely NOT an explicit missions trip. He had just happened to hook up with a church there and become involved in their international ministry in his free time.
Anyways, Danny's viewpoint that he doesn't want to "use" a missions trip to gain something which it wasn't intended to "gain" troubles me a bit, because to me, it reinforces a "dichotomy" between secular and spiritual life, activities, and achievement: If you go on missions, you score X heaven points, and if you land this secular job, you score Y earth points, and those two aren't transferrable.
What is missions, anyways? John Piper writes that missions exists because worship doesn't. Missions is an means to worship, as well as a means of worship, and that is not an option for us believers. After my experiences, one of the things I've become convicted of is that there really is no barrier that we should be erecting between the two, as far as where and when we should be desiring His name to be glorified amongst the nations and peoples, between the secular working world and the "missions field". I'm not just saying it just because it's "cool" as a Christian -- especially career oriented Stanford Asian-American Christians like us -- to say so, but that's what we should be thinking as, because God doesn't think bimodally, in "missions mode" or "non-missions mode".
One thing that I've been reminded a lot about, in Perspectives (a true blessing for me thus far, and not just because of Chancellor Dave!) and elsewhere is this: Everything, jobs, our education, our ministries, whatever, are only given, loaned to us by Him for the temporal period that we are here on Earth. And He calls us to be good stewards of what He gives us, right? If we, in doing whatever we do, have desire to see His name be glorified and love Him rather than love His gifts, ie, jobs, material wealth, or whatever, then it will be the guiding factor in seeing if our heart's desires are His desires -- that He rewards those who "believe that He exists" and "earnestly seek Him" (my emphasis) no matter what the venue for that is. (By the way, ask CH to sing his musical rendition of Hebrews 11:6 sometime.... =) )
So, I guess my take is that if we "use" our experiences, whether spiritual or secular, to further His Kingdom and seeking new avenues for doing so -- jobs, missions trips, whatever -- then that is indeed what He wants us to "use" them for.
So, it's onto the .com(tm) world for me. And yes, Dave and Danny have raised points about the financial aspect of it all that is striking close to home for me as well.
But that's for another Thought... (I mean, I'm a CS major pursuing a real CS job now, so I should practice decomposing them into separate files!)
G'night!
| Mark Wang <mwang@cs.stanford.edu> | Last modified: 2000.2.15 |