Rahul Guha
Rahul Guha is a Managing Director and Partner at the Mumbai office of The Boston Consulting Group. He leads the Healthcare and LifeSciences practice and is the Recruiting Director for BCG in India. He leads strategy and transformation assignments across a range of companies, re-orienting company strategies and delivering market value. Guha has an MBA from IIM Bangalore and a BE degree from the University of Mumbai. In this interview with BL on Campus , Guha talks about the consulting business, on BCG hiring from business schools this year, and the qualities BCG looks for in a candidate.
In the context of the general slowdown in the economy, is recruiting from B-schools down this year? And, specifically for BCG, do you see yourself hiring less or more this year?
Indian B-schools are a recognised source of talent, not just in India, but globally. Within BCG too, we have seen continued interest in hiring from India for our South-East Asia, Middle East, North America and European offices. Especially for BCG, our growth in India remains very strong and we will continue to hire from Indian B-schools, in line with our hiring targets for the year.
Approximately how many candidates does BCG look to hire this year for its consulting business?
We will hire between 200 and 250 this year across MBAs, undergrads and lateral hires.
How fast has the consulting business been growing in the past year? Or, as a consequence of the slowdown, has consulting too taken a hit?
Our consulting business growth remains robust and in line with the past few years growth, and the India office continues to be one of the fastest-growing BCG offices globally. Our strategy of focussing on value delivery continues to ensure robust demand for our teams across industries and topics.
Apart from consulting, which domain areas do you see strong recruiting from?
While we see recruiting from the traditional domain areas of FMCG and banking, we are also seeing new economy businesses recruiting in large numbers. This is for both international new economy businesses as well as Indian emerging businesses.
What qualities and skills does BCG seek in a candidate from a B-school? Are you seeking strengths in certain key domain areas?
We seek passionate, open-minded individuals with a wide range of academic backgrounds, work experience, perspectives, thinking styles and expertise. Excellent academic credentials are a necessary — but not sufficient — requirement. You must demonstrate the curiosity to ask the right questions, the courage and creativity to blaze new paths, the ability to collaborate with colleagues and clients, and the leadership skills to transform your ideas into action.
Which schools are you looking to recruit from this year.. from among the top ten? Or, will you look at second-rung B-schools as well?
We have our target list of schools from which we traditionally hire, which would include the top ten MBA campuses and undergraduate campuses. Given our growth, we are also expanding our search across new campuses as well as fresh talent pools such as PhDs, MBBS and other streams we haven’t traditionally hired from.