Making It in Mercer's "Meritocracy"

William Tiffany is a senior associate with Mercer Management Consulting, a division of Mercer Inc., under the parent company of Marsh & McLennan (MMC ). Tiffany joined the company's Dallas branch in 2003 after earning an MBA from Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. Mercer's consulting services span human resources, investment, management, and identity and brand consulting. MBAs can work within any of these divisions.

Tiffany says Mercer's size and mentoring program make it a great company for MBAs looking to gain experience working face to face with clients. He recently spoke with BusinessWeek Online reporter Jeffrey Gangemi. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Q: Where do you do most of your recruiting?
A: We have a core group of schools that we target for MBA hires. Those include the Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business, the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, and Stanford Graduate School of Business.

For our Texas office, we go to the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business and SMU Cox School of Business. For our offices in Montreal and Toronto, we go to the University of Western Ontario Richard Ivey School of Business as well.

Q: When do you go to campus?
A: We try to make it to campus by mid-September at the latest. We like to precede our first visit to campus with a welcome letter to students in an attempt to find those who are interested in a consulting career. When we arrive on campus, we hold an information session to discuss career opportunities and our summer associate program.

Q: How many MBAs does Mercer hire in a given year?
A: We only hire about 15 summer associates and just over 20 full-time employees. We're looking to expand our recruiting over the next few years for all of our main offices nationwide.

Q: What kind of training and mentoring do you offer to associates?
A: We have a fairly robust training and development process that associates go through when they join the firm. Associates go through what we call "toolkit" training, where they gain experience within a variety of case-based and simulated case learning environments. Associates will provide feedback, develop work plans, deliverables, and recommendations to the partner working on the case.

It's an ideal way to simulate client work early on, while the Mercer training is being implemented. Through that process, we hope the new hires will be able to build a little bit of a brand for themselves.

Q: What is the summer associate program like?
A: For the summer intern program, we take roughly the same approach to the recruiting process. It's a 10-week program, in which you get a condensed version of the orientation that I described. The idea is to quickly get up to speed on Mercer and get staffed on one or more cases, across a couple of the industry groups.

There's no shelter from the client just because you're a summer associate. There are interim case reviews, where summer associates get feedback on their work when they still have about five weeks left in their internship. They have a buddy, who is generally at the associate level, as well as a higher-ranking advisor, who is their champion throughout the summer.

Q: What's the culture like?
A: It's a friendly and fun culture. We have a group of highly intelligent people with lots of industry experience, but we're also nice people. Mercer employees can decide to work 10 or 11 months in a year and still have a job waiting for them when they get back. In fact, about 20% of employees took advantage of this in 2003.

There's also a lot of encouragement to do things like nonprofit fellowships, which Mercer subsidizes. Also at Mercer, we tout our meritocracy. We've had people come in as a recent college graduate at an analyst level and progress to the level of partner in four years.

Q: How competitive is it among consulting firms on campus?
A: It's competitive, but there's no animosity. We're all doing the same types of things to try to differentiate ourselves. We all try to pull candidates aside to make it more personal. To get that personal interaction, we'll often take groups of students out to get to know them.

Q: How does Mercer set itself apart from the other big firms?
A: We go by a mantra: opportunity, impact, and choice. At Mercer, as a relatively small firm, associates still have the opportunity to work for an identifiable brand. But they also have the chance to get in front of clients frequently and earlier than in some of those larger firms, where there's a far more hierarchical and structured approach to client involvement.

Q: How can B-schools better prepare future consultants?
A: The case-based model that many B-schools are using is great. But all of our work is data-driven, and there's often not enough time spent on the technical skills of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. Students should also get more practice with technical business writing. These skills can really give someone a competitive advantage in this business.

Q: How long do people tend to stay at Mercer?
A: Consulting is probably one of the highest turnover businesses. At Mercer, because of the freedom we provide, associates tend to stay longer than at other firms.