For a Chance at BCG, Do It His Way

To nail a case interview with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), applicants should treat it like a performance and learn to execute precise timing, says Kermit King, vice-president and director in the Chicago office. King says you can differentiate yourself from other candidates by being relaxed enough to leave time to synthesize and summarize your recommendations at the end.

Before joining BCG in 1993, King, who has overseen all of BCG's North American recruiting since 2003, earned his MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. King worked in corporate finance for Goldman Sachs (GS ) in New York from 1989 to 1991 before B-school.

At BCG, the consultants themselves do the on-campus MBA recruiting. King, who has been involved in recruiting MBAs for 10 years, says it takes up about 30% of his time, leaving the rest for traditional client work, which is focused mainly on consumer and industrial goods, as well as growth strategy through organic innovation and acquisitions.

King recently spoke with BusinessWeek Online reporter Jeffrey Gangemi. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow:

What's your recruiting model?
We like the bulk of the recruiting, as well as planning and strategy, to be done by consultants. We hire MBAs into an entry-level consultant position. We find the most hires at Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Kellogg, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, The Wharton School, and MIT Sloan School of Management . We also hire some people from Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business, the University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and Duke University Fuqua School of Business.

This year, we're hiring about 100 to 150 summer interns and are looking to convert as many as we can to full-time hires. We hire MBAs into all of our 10 offices in North America -- New York, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, and a smaller office in Miami.

How do you differentiate BCG from your competitors?
BCG has a reputation for placing a priority on apprenticeship and the development of the individual. We're an extraordinarily powerful brand credential, but we're not just a résumé stamp. BCG is a place where someone can come in and have some control and autonomy over what they do and be supported by best-in-class staff development mechanisms and philosophy. We've always had respect for bright young individuals and a flat hierarchy. Ideas trump tenure at BCG. It's also an exploratory culture that tries to offer more customized solutions to our clients than our competitors.

What are you looking for in a successful candidate?
We're much more interested in raw or innate ability than specific expertise. We value a generalist experience...

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