Salonee Kabra | The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

Salonee has been with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) since 2020. She qualified her Chartered Accountancy exams in June 2019, having secured an All India Rank at both Intermediate and Final levels. Prior to joining BCG, Salonee did her industrial training in investment banking at YES Securities (India), after pursuing her articleship in statutory audit at Ernst & Young in Mumbai. She has also completed her B.Com (Hons.) from H.R. College of Commerce and Economics and is a qualified Company Secretary. She will be sharing her experience from her stint at BCG focusing on sharing insights about the management consulting industry in India.

Interview

How did you recruit for this role? What would your advice be for potential candidates aspiring to get here? (recruiting strategy, cycle, process etc.)

A large share of BCG’s recruitment for Associate and Senior Associate levels happens through campus recruitment cycles once/ twice a year. These are across fields from IITs, IIMs, top commerce colleges, CA cohort and the like. In recent years, they’ve also initiated lateral hiring from corporate roles and other advisory firms. For CA students, they run a hiring cycle twice a year, usually soon after the results of each attempt. Networking would be key here as the reach out while attempted to be exhaustive, is more organic.

The interview process for any management consulting firm is largely focused on case interviews. After a rigorous CV shortlisting process, each shortlisted candidate is assigned a buddy, who is an existing employee of the firm and usually a hire from the same campus, that helps with the preparation process for case interviews. 

What are the key skills that are required for this role?

Problem Solving, logical, structured thinking, with an ability to articulate or communicate well are the foundational skills sought after. Certain soft skills I would hold high bar on- is having the determination and perseverance to put in the required number of hours with unnerving motivation each day and across assignments.

The required skillset remains same right from interview to actual cases that you work on, while you’re in the firm.

What is the typical feeder profile (typical previous work experience) for this industry in general and for your firm in particular?

Given that everyday requires one to deliver and is very demanding, they look for an ‘X-factor’ in the CVs while shortlisting.  A killer attitude with someone who’s portrayed dedication and passion to go a level beyond in their areas of interest, would be preferred. These areas of interest could be across any field- sports/ music/ social media influencing or blogging, etc.

Is there an education path that is preferred for getting a role in this industry?

A masters from top B-schools or undergrad from top tiered colleges like SRCC, IITs, CA course. Apart from this, people with prior work experience from Tier-II consulting companies or multiple x-factors as referred above, would also be preferred.

What is your team size and what is the typical staffing on a consulting case?

The firm has a total strength of 700+ in consulting in India. A typical team size would be 2-4 members for execution + Project leader+ Partner + Senior Partner.

How is a typical day at work for you?

While the nature of work would vary depending on the client, typically each day would involve interaction with a lot of clients, analysis, collection of data, expert calls, benchmarking and understanding multiple processes, best practices. There are also internal team meetings across multiple levels for brainstorming and alignments.  Assignments could range from defining growth strategy for a NBFC to developing a new product offering or incentive scheme or ways for cost reduction for a manufacturing company

What are your key responsibilities in a typical case?

There’s a high bar on module ownership by respective team members. There would be end-to-end ownership on the analysis, collection of data and presentation of the same on excel/ slides across all levels internally and upto CXO levels from client side.

What is the typical exit that people get from this role?

VCs, PEs, Strategy roles in industry, those joining directly post under graduation have high chances of securing admissions in top global B-schools

What are the pros and cons about this role?

Pros: Exposure to multiple industries owing to sector agnostic nature of the role, steep learning, people really invest in your growth and provide actionable feedback. Great place to start at- helps sharpen structured thinking and articulation.

Cons – Maintaining the work-life balance and sustainability given how demanding the role is, in terms of performance and work pressure.

What are your typical work hours in a week (including weekends)?

65-70 productive hours per week is the general average. Most people have a high bar on no weekend work unless so required owing to a committed deadline.

How do the responsibilities evolve as one grows into senior roles?

Module ownership to client/case ownership to managing business/account

What would be your advice for people aspiring for a similar role?

It’s important to make an informed decision and be sure of the objectives and commitment the field requires. The learning curve is steep but one ought to be open to feedbacks. For those in their early years, I’d recommend going the extra mile for building a strong profile.