r/supplychain

Hi everyone, I was hopefully looking to get some advice, and/or insight on if i am chasing a dead end career.

I have had a job in the trades field for over five years now. I really don’t make much, and I also just hate the work. I know everyone says the trades are the best thing to go into these days but I really don’t want to be on my deathbed thinking about how I hated my entire career and felt no purpose doing it.

I am going back to school in September for supply chain operations and management. I am not dead set on it (I just enjoy learning, as well as I like business better than the trade I’m in).

Now everyone around me is telling me I am an idiot for choosing something that is going to be destroyed by AI soon, and I will never find a job.

Like I said before, I am not dead set on anything I just would like to go to school and work in something I don’t absolutely hate. I am young, and want to explore different paths. All of that being said, should I re consider everything?

I’m in my last year of a 3-year advanced diploma in Supply Chain / Purchasing & Supply Management at a college in Ontario, but I don’t have a supply chain internship or co-op experience.

Most of my work experience is in fast food/restaurant operations, and I’m actively trying to land an entry-level supply chain job before or after graduation.

What roles should I realistically target with my background? I’m looking at supply chain coordinator, inventory coordinator, purchasing/procurement assistant, logistics coordinator, operations coordinator, or any realistic entry-level supply chain role.

What would you recommend I do to improve my chances and actually get hired?

I got into supply chain and adjacent work kind of randomly - a sorta natural development from learning how inventory worked at from a store I worked in many years ago.

It’s fine - it pays the bills. But I’m deeply unhappy. I don’t have a desire to specialize or continue to grow. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m in an industry that’s really hectic (restaurant and food cpg) or if it’s all like this.

Were you able to transfer to a completely different kind of role? If so, what is it? And how did you organize your resume to get a role outside of this field? People always ask “well what do you want to do?” And I’m not quite sure anymore. But i know it’s not this!

I have a visual art BFA so I feel a little trapped like I don’t have a good skillset. And I feel too old to pivot (mid-30s)

Any advice or stories of your own experience are appreciated :)

could be anything from sheet/excel shortcuts to ERP systems or something completely unexpected.

I'm 24, graduated with an SCM degree, and currently work in procurement with 2 years of experience. Job is stable, but I'm highly driven and want to maximize my career development while I have the energy and stamina for it. I already got the APICS CPIM and CSCP. I want to keep improving my resume, but I feel like adding a 3rd or 4th certification might actually look weird on a CV for someone with my years of experience. I really don't want to just sit still though. What's the best move here? I still have 2 years left in my contract with my current company. So switching to another job isn't possible at the moment.

Have any of you found a supply-chain-ready dress sneaker?

Perhaps this is an odd question for this subreddit, so if the mods deem it outside of scope, no worries.

I am looking for recommendations on dress sneakers that are durable enough for the warehouse floor but dress-y enough for the boardroom.

Context: I am a General Manager of a distribution center. Roughly 80% of my job is in the office and I am expected to dress in business casual most days, ready to host customers, guests, and the occasional executive. Still, I am on the warehouse floor often enough that dress shoes are not a comfortable or sustainable option.

I am looking for something that looks stylish whether paired with jeans or slacks. They also need to be supportive and durable enough for daily wear, ideally lasting for 2+ years. Most recently, I have worn a pair of Adidas, but after only eight months the glued sole is separating. I like the look of some of the Wolf and Shepherd offerings, but recent reviews claim the quality is lacking in their latest shoes and I am concerned they won't hold up. I am willing to invest somewhere in the $150-250 range, if I am confident they will last.

Our company switched to a new inventory system recently (about 6 months). Yesterday I discovered I had placed POs for 2 seasonal items when I shouldn’t have. I have already told my boss but I know Monday we will likely be the big conversation. I am freaking out and an having major anxiety so much that I can’t even enjoy this long weekend. I think this will be expensive for the company and worried it my cost me my job. I guess im just looking for mistake horror stories to make me feel better. 😵‍💫

In May I graduated from Penn State with a bachelor’s in Supply Chain & Information Systems. After 200 applications and 4 full-process interviews, I accepted my 2nd job offer about a month and a half post-grad. The beauty of this degree is that it enables you for such a diverse area of work. Throughout your education you’ll learn a variety of concepts/ideas which are applicable to many businesses and their respective operations. The downside however, is that with how tight the job market is right now and the focus of these jobs typically being quite niche, you’ll be competing with folks from many different walks of life for roles within supply chain. This is even the case for entry-level roles, as I’ve experienced first-hand applying for jobs recently.

An internship provides you with many benefits. Work experience, connections, and a potential hire if the internship goes well. While not as effective on its own, a job in retail can also be used to your utmost advantage. You don’t need to work a tiresome amount of hours or try to be the very best at your job. Focus on accomplishing tasks and comprehending processes that take place throughout the day, so that you can properly lay out this information on your resume once the day comes for you to do so.

You also build upon many of your hard and soft skills working in retail in terms of customer service, inventory management, time management, and general professionalism. Learning how to carry yourself in a workplace setting will do wonders for your future. Yes, working retail usually sucks compared to other jobs. But do it now, so you’re not stuck doing it your whole life.

Your work experience is truly what you make of it. I realized this after taking a step back and looking at my resume. I was so focused on keeping it to a single page, that I undersold myself. My work experience only took up about 40% of the page, the rest being my education and skills. The wording I used and lack of elaboration on what I actually did during my time there was hurting my exposure, whether it’s being manually reviewed by a recruiter or AI. From that point forward I revised my work experience to be much more detailed, but not riddled with nonsense. I also used more sophisticated words what I did, for example instead of “stocked shelves and monitored aisles”, you could say “replenished shelves on a day-to-day basis to optimal level of stock and fulfilled needs of my assigned aisles/zone”.

Make note of the systems/software your job or company uses. Ask questions and familiarize yourself with what their functions are. The more you comprehend about your job, its role, and how your puzzle piece fits into the big picture, the more confidence you’ll have talking about it during interviews and the more you can go in-depth on the things you’ve done. Many college graduates have worked a retail job in their lives, not as many have taken note of how many SKUs they deal with, or things they’ve done at work to speed up processes, be it big or small. QUANTIFY WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.

I want to emphasize that this is a personal account of what helped me and you shouldn’t expect to make yourself stand out just because you have prior work experience. Your experience is genuinely what you make of it and how you relay that information to others. Having the job/experience only gives you the ability to put that on your resume. How you communicate that experience to the people you want to hire you sets you apart from other candidates.

An internship is generally more beneficial and complementary to your education, but you can take regular work experience just as far. Be diligent and mindful.

Hi everyone! I am starting college in mid August and currently on the path of Supply Chain Management. I would like to know what job(s) you have done using your degree and what they were like.

I know getting a Supply Chain Management degree is very flexible for getting jobs and you can do a bunch of different things. So I want to hear what some of you guys have done with your degree.

Thank you!

I’m starting work in an office/warehouse role. The job will have me taking orders from buyers, inputting them into software, then later picking them in the warehouse. The hours and pay suck, but I’m hopeful it will be good for my resume.

I’m graduating soon with a related degree, and I also have an active security clearance through a DoD contractor. Ideally I could land something there in supply chain because I want to work in military or federally contracted companies.

My questions are:

-Is this new job really supply chain?

-How long should I stay at it?

-What else can I do in the meantime? I’ve heard of FAR as something specific to my interest.

Thank you.

Hi,

I've recently applied for a SIOP position which is typically outside my realm. I have a forestry background, not business or supply chain management. They seem very eager to talk to me. As I've read through the job description a SIOP analyst just seems like someone who is data heavy and utilizes BI dashboard tools to generate reports/summaries to help guide decision making processes as well as guide both long-term and short term strategy. Is my understanding correct? I know there is likely nuance to it but that is the gist of it I am getting. For reference this is for a forest products company. My background is very analysis heavy with a lot of mathematical/statistical modelling in R or Python with a geospatial component to it.

Any feedback and insight is greatly appreciated.

Curious what people in the field are actually experiencing right now. I know there have been posts about early shortages showing up, but I want to hear from people working in procurement, logistics, or inventory management about what they are seeing day to day.

Are you getting lead time warnings from suppliers? Are carriers already repricing lanes? I work adjacent to demand planning and the signals we are getting from our upstream suppliers are starting to get a little noisy, but it is hard to tell how much is actual disruption versus people getting ahead of themselves and overordering again like we saw postCOVID.

I am also wondering how companies are responding strategically. Are you seeing firms actually diversify sourcing right now or is it mostly just talk and risk registers that nobody acts on until it is too late?

Would love to hear from people in chemicals, electronics, or industrial manufacturing since those seem most exposed to Hormuzrelated risk. Any sector perspective is useful at this point though.

Also for those earlier in their careers, how are your managers and directors handling this with the team? Is this being treated as a real planning event or more of a wait and see situation where you are just watching the news?

With all the news about potential Gulf of Hormuz disruptions, I'm curious how people in different supply chain roles are actually experiencing this on the ground. Are you seeing it in lead times, spot rates, or supplier conversations yet, or does it still feel more like a headline than a real operational problem?

I work in procurement and logistics coordination. We've started getting nervous emails from a few key suppliers about contingency planning, but nothing has materially changed in our orders or timelines yet. Some colleagues think we're overreacting by scenario planning this early, others think we're already behind.

I'm also wondering how companies are balancing the cost of holding buffer stock against the uncertainty. Carrying more inventory ties up cash, but getting caught flatfooted is obviously worse. Every organization seems to have a slightly different risk tolerance on this.

For those who've navigated past disruptions like Suez in 2021 or the COVIDera shortages, what signals did you actually use to decide when to act versus when to wait and monitor? And for people earlier in their careers, how are you getting visibility into how your company is responding to this kind of macro risk? Curious to hear how different roles and industries are handling it.

We're reviewing a few manufacturing partners for an upcoming production project, including First Mold and a couple of regional suppliers. While pricing and lead times are easy to compare, I'm finding it much harder to evaluate things like engineering support, communication during design changes, and long term reliability.

For those who've gone through a similar evaluation, what factors ended up making the biggest difference in your final decision?

Thinking of Starting a job in SCM as a fresher who just graduated from university. Although the pay isn't that much, but will be learning alot like the Softwares such as SAP aswell as corporate experience which would help me in my career.
( I have done BBA)
What are your guys opinions on SCM and its future scopee?

Was offered a full time entry level supply chain position with Boeing in the DFW area. Starting annual salary of 67k. Mind you I would have to cover relocation expenses myself. I also bring 3 years of supply chain experience so I’m not exactly new / entry level. I have been out of supply chain for a year, though, because I wanted to try other career avenues like mechanics and plumbing, which did not turn out to be good fits. I spoke to the recruiter about some of my reservations and he said this job market is extremely tough and that most companies are not offering to cover relocation in today’s market. I am honestly uncertain of what to do. I am in the process of interviewing with other companies and so far 3 of them said they would offer to cover relocation. I’m just not sure about Boeing and the work culture or the possibility of moving up in the organization.

As someone who has an undergrad in supply chain management. I was thinking do I go back to school for MS Supply chain analytics or MS in supply chain management. Right now, I have been accepted to a school for supply chain analytics. Please advise as I am torn between the two.

Thank you

Our leadership team wants to implement AI in our forecasting process. I'm not technical, so I spoke with our systems team about it and they're telling me that our inventory data is a mess.

Does this mean we'll have to fix the data first, or can we still move forward with a pilot?

Helloo guyss

I'm currently in 3rd year in a teir 3 College and I'm pursuing BE in Electronics and Instrumentation. I'm not much of a tech girl or a coding girl. I want to do higher studies in SCM. I really want to know which college is the best for this course (foreign or India if any exams also mention that) and why? And also is it worth it? Because AI won't take over this , right....

The thing is my placement sucks plus after BE we barely get 3-4 lpa (inr) at the max it's 7 lpa for a fresher, and it's hectic job, will I be paid more than them if I complete this SCM?

Plus I have to start to prepare but idk how to and where to start and how to please also tell me that. Please please help me

I'm a rising junior in college and I'm thinking about getting a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt in order to help me get a summer 2027 internship. What is the fastest way for me to get one this summer?