Between Two Firms is an interview series accompanying Economics@Work. We ask alumni speakers the candid questions students can’t ask in person. This week’s guest is Ridhi Patel, a Principal at Trexin Consulting. Ridhi discusses the benefits of using the Michigan network, being a good communicator, and her view of an economics degree.
Q: You mentioned your first internship at Wachovia in Chicago: how did you get the internship?
A: So I actually had a family friend: there’s no other way that I could think of as a freshman to get something that easy, and they were just nice about it. They didn’t really need somebody but they were like, well we’ll give you seven dollars per hour. So yeah, I got paid and I just did basic stuff, but it was worth it: you got to dress up every day, you learned how to behave in the office, and what the culture looks like. So everything’s worth it; every experience is worth it.
Q: So there wasn’t really much of a learning curve in that situation (at Wachovia)?
A: No, I think the only learning curve was cold calling. I hate cold calling: it’s very, very awkward, but now I can do it, I’m less uncomfortable about it. But yes that is probably one thing that was typical to stereotype. I mean they always told us when we were younger that your first job is going to be cold calling and, you know, data entry and that’s exactly what it was.
Q: What are some specific economic concepts that you employ, not necessarily day-to-day but that you find yourself using more often in your job or past jobs that you’ve had?
A: I think the biggest, like I’ve mentioned before, is data ingestion, right? So how do you ingest and categorize data: when you get facts from the client or you get facts from yourself by investigating. How do you categorize that in terms of a business? It seems simpler than you’d think, but for most people when they don’t have experience with it, it doesn’t come directly to mind. But, things like, you know, the market. How does that company perform in the market and why? And let’s break it down another level, you know, what’s their pricing strategy, what’s their marketing strategy, how are they addressing the demand in the market with their product? What products are they offering? Are they offering the right products for the demand? So it seems like it’s very simple, simple concepts, and for someone who’s got the common sense and can understand, okay yes this is what I need and this is why I need it, but because we’ve learned it and it’s kind of engrained, drilled, really, into our heads, that’s automatically what comes to mind. Okay, so I have the information of why you price it this way, how you price it, you know, what your reasoning is behind it. Okay, now I need to know who your competitors are: that’s step two. Okay, now I need to know et cetera, et cetera. You have the concepts of the business, you know what you’re looking for, because not everybody’s going to give you the information that you need. You will have to ask them at one point, and you don’t want to go back again and again, so you lay it out, you see what you’re missing, and then you ask for that information.
Q: Do you have any specific advantages or disadvantages of an economics degree as opposed to a BBA for undergraduates?
A: I’ll start with the disadvantages. The disadvantage is probably the network. A business school, and of course I’m biased because I’m an econ major: a business school for undergrad or graduate school, the largest value they have is their network. So their professors are very connected, their alumni are connected. In the long run when you’re looking for jobs, you’re looking for opportunities, that network is invaluable because you know they’re going towards the field that you’re looking for. So you know there are people in the business school that are going towards consulting. It’s almost guaranteed. But it’s not guaranteed that econ majors are going into consulting. So, it’s kind of just given to you on a platter, that you have this information, you have this pool of resources, use it. I think the benefit of an econ major is just structuring how you think. I don’t see people who have business degrees being as analytical, on average, as econ majors are. I think that a lot of the, if you look at a job description, for almost any consulting interview, it will say ‘strong analytical skills,’ ‘strong problem solving skills.’ And then, like I said, pulling it back to see the big picture. We know how all of those terms that I talked about before affect a company in the market, and how that market plays in the world economy. We can continue moving backwards and seeing a bigger picture and an even bigger picture and an even bigger picture. Not to say business school students can’t, but it’s like our bread and butter. That is what we do day in and day out.
Q: How did you adjust to the intense learning curve you were describing in consulting?
A: It’s experience, a lot of it. And I know that’s an answer that not a lot of people want to here, because they want to get good and they want to get good fast. It is definitely overwhelming your first few times. But to decrease that overwhelming feeling is learning how to organize. And I think that’s the best thing. You figure out what you know, and you write down what you don’t know. We have analysts that I tell this to all the time. If you have a question about something stupid, like you don’t know an acronym, you don’t know what this term means, write it down, either Google it or Google it as soon as you’re out of the meeting. Figure out that information, and as you’re doing it in real time you learn it faster, you’ll get used to looking it up really quickly, and you can put it into context because if I write a word down right now that you mentioned, and I go back to it two hours later, I’m not going to remember the context it was in, as well as if I do it right now after this interview. So doing tips and tricks like that and getting the information when you receive it and it’s fresh in your mind really helps you. And then you start doing that faster and faster because it becomes second nature to be like ‘Okay give me a second and let me Google it’ or ‘Give me a second and let me look it up.’ And I think that’s the fastest way to do it, is how do you organize your thoughts?
Q: Do you think that Trexin [Consulting] and the consulting industry in general are male dominated like other fields? How do you best position yourself as a woman in the industry?
A: In the industry in general, yes. It used to be more than it is now but it is definitely making a shift towards a lot more female employees, and we’re actively trying to get more female employees. It’s not because we don’t hire them: it’s because not a lot of people, I think, apply. And I think the biggest deterrent for women in consulting is the travel. And I don’t know that for a fact but I think that it’s one of the big things, because for me as well, I’ve noticed that in comparison to my male counterparts, I would complain more about the travel than they would. So I came up with this theory that I think that travelling aspect of it is difficult. It doesn’t have to be necessarily true, but I think that just business in general, the financial world in general, has been dominated by males for so long, that it’s going to take a while to make that change, and people need to be drawn to it. So I met a couple people today that said, and they’re women, that said ‘I’m a little shy,’ ‘I’m not comfortable in this situation,’ and sometimes you have to be aggressive, and being aggressive in a room full of older men that you’re basically telling what to do, you have to kind of overcompensate. So you have to go up above and beyond what you would go in any other profession, which is unfair, but it’s the nature of the game. So I remember the first time I was a project manager and I was sitting in a room with all these tech guys who were 20 to 30 years older than me, Caucasian, and male. And it was just me. And I was super overwhelmed not only because I was new but because of that demographic ratio, and just the fact that I was nervous that they wouldn’t listen, or they wouldn’t care what I thought. Luckily they did, and they were great, but that thought did come into my mind initially; that fear came into my mind that this might happen because of this. So I hope that things are changing; definitely I see more girls joining consulting and being really, really good at it, because it’s definitely a lot of empathy and listening and understanding and a lot of personality judgment, which, you know, scientifically women are better at kind of gauging the room and gauging emotions and stuff like that. I’d like to think that they would be valuable and they would provide a lot more value than I think they’d think. So it might just be a mental shift, it might be not being overwhelmed or intimidated, but hopefully it gets different. But I have seen a huge change, even in the last eight years of being in consulting it’s been a huge change.
Q: You mentioned that you utilized U-M’s alumni network. How did you get started doing that?
A: So I always wanted to see, because I moved back to Chicago and I kind of wanted to be a part of the alumni group, the network in Chicago. So they have events every once in a while, happy hours and stuff like that, they get together and talk about things. Sometimes they have industry-specific ones. That’s how I got started in looking at the website and getting familiar with it. Then I saw, when I started looking for jobs, I saw the job posting part of it. And I didn’t have that much hope for it but I just kind of started searching, and I thought, Michigan specifically, is great about school spirit, for life. I’ve gone all over the world, and I’ve gotten people yell “Go Blue” at me if I’m wearing a Michigan shirt, just anywhere. And they’re so willing to help each other, especially alumni, and go above and beyond for it, and I knew that. And I was hoping that would apply when I was looking for people. But we have such a vast network, it’s a huge school, people go all over the world and in all sorts of industries, and we have access to that resource and that information, for free. That’s why I always think that it’s very underused and underrated, honestly. I think people just forget about it after they graduate and it’s not a big deal anymore.
Q: Were you ever intimidated by the size of the network and confused about where to start?
A: I’ve never been a Type B person, but meeting new people that are very successful in their field and a lot senior to me, is always nerve-wracking. You’re not the smartest person in the room, far from it, actually, and you’re very inexperienced, and especially if it’s looking for a position, you are so much more on edge. You want to look good, you want to act ‘properly,’ you want to make the right impression, you want to talk about the right things. Sometimes you talk too much, sometimes you talk too little; every little thing is so important and you’re thinking about all those things at once. It’s getting comfortable with how you behave in front of people, and know it’s all inherent. So no it doesn’t make me nervous to stand in front of someone. It doesn’t make me nervous as to how I look in front of someone. The biggest thing is to know how to converse. And it’s always going to be little bit nerve-wracking. It gets less and less every year. I’m a social person so for me it’s just getting over that initial hump when you meet somebody, but once you realize it’s just a human being, it’s another person, most likely they’re going to be nice. And they’re going to be understanding. Especially for you guys, if you’re straight out of college. They know that you’re new, they know that you don’t have experience. And most people, I would say probably 80-90 percent of people, will be understanding about it. I think people just expect the fear factor and the intensity, which is not always there.
Q: So you talked a little about not having an MBA. What are some disadvantages to being in a management position and not having one?
A: Yeah, it depends on what industry you’re in. Again, what company you work for. So a smaller company will be a little more lax, and you’ll find more senior employees that don’t have graduate degrees, at least maybe not MBAs. But if you go to the Big 4 and the Accentures and Deloittes of the world, you will hit a ceiling, and you will get to a point where you need to be promoted, but if there’s somebody else that’s also up for that promotion and they have a graduate degree, most likely they’ll get the position. So it really depends on your environment, and that sucks because you could be just as good as anybody else and that person brings no value except the title of an MBA. But, when you’re in an environment that’s that competitive, and we talked about this earlier, it’s just about how competitive is it and which environments are more cutthroat than others, those big companies are the hardest. And anything in industry, in corporate America, you will hit a ceiling, no matter what. It may not be for an MBA, it may be for something else, it may be for some certification, but most likely you’ll hit it. So if you are planning to get one or to not get one, you want to make sure that you’re path doesn’t need one, because you don’t want to go down that road and then get passed up because you didn’t decided to do this. That should never be something that should stop you. And I used to really be an advocate for MBAs. Now that I’m here, I see people with MBAs, I see people without them. I never have seen a difference. I think the biggest difference I see is that person that got the job got the job probably through somebody that he knew from business school.
Q: What’s your best Michigan experience?
A: I had a lot of them. I think the one that comes to mind, and I might get in trouble for this, but there was one night where we were coming home from a party and I think it was my freshman year because I was going back to my dorm, and you know the fountain that’s out by the quad? It was really late, and there was nobody around, and my friend dared me to jump in. And I rolled up my pants and we jumped around, frolicked a bit, and got wet, but it was just fun. Like I’m not a rebel and I’ve never done anything bad, and I just felt like this was something where I could get caught, I could get in trouble! But it was exciting because I was in college, it was my first year and I was doing new things and it was just something that I remember fondly.