More than 20 students from Guanghua School of Management went on a company visit to BCG Beijing Office during the former Series Company Visit Events. Let‘s see how it went on.
1. A brief introduction to Boston Consulting Group
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm with more than 90 offices in 50 countries. The firm advises clients in the private, public, and non-profit sectors around the world, including more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 and is one of the 'Big Three' strategy consulting firms (MBB). Considered one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in a branched-internal survey, BCG was once ranked third in Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For".
2. Visiting activities
Firstly, the HR in charge took us around the office and introduced the functions of different rooms and areas. The office environment in BCG is both pleasant and highly efficient, with enjoyable scenery and humanization design. Pantry is in the main corridor with delicate cakes and drinks, where staff chat with each other or take a break.
Next, BCG Recruiting Director did a presentation about the company. The presentation was divided into the following four parts: Basic Introduction, Career Development, Typical Work Flow of a Consultant, and General Recruitment Information.
During the basic introduction session, we learned BCG is a leading global management consulting firm, with expertise in various areas. From the perspective of industry, BCG’s practices include industrial goods, consumer products, TMT, health care, energy environment, financial institutions and insurance, social impact, and principal investor & private equity, etc.. From the perspective of functions, they cover strategy, people and organization, operations, transformation/ large scale change, digital, corporate development, technology advantage, and marketing, sales and pricing, etc... With the core business of consulting, BCG also owns many extension brands and standalone brands, contributing to their business performance.
In the following part of career development, we were introduced about the career path, culture, training system, mobility program, and alumni in BCG. Next, we were presented the typical work team and project in BCG. A project normally starts with a plan, which contains understanding the work scope, setting up the right team, preparing the work plan, and identifying the key milestones as well as developing relevant methodology and develop hypotheses. The next steps are executing, interim readout, revising, final readout, and cleaning up.
In the last part, Recruiting Director instructed us how to get prepared while at school. 2 programs are designed for students, PTA (part-time assistant) and internship. PTA aims to help freshman and sophomore to get basic sense and knowledge of a consulting job and BCG. PTAs request at least 6 months of commitment (onsite or remote, 1-2 days a week). Outstanding PTAs could get chances to be recommended to interview. Summer Intern is an eight-week internship program that provides promising employees with professional internal training, real case exposure, and networking events.
Afterwards, current graduate students from Peking University shared their experience in BCG with us. They shared the preparation timeline and key points, including pre-talk and various rounds of interviews. A Q&A session was held afterward. We shared opinions about life-work balance, required skills, community work in school, and other areas related.
This study visit not only deepened students’understanding of the consulting career and BCG, but also provided a clear path to enter this area and devote to a promising future. It offers a great opportunity for the students to meet professional staff from BCG, who have solved students’problems and addressed the curiosity of students. Students found this visit informative and insightful, and are all looking forward to participating in more similar visits in the future.
Recorded by Shiyang Ma,
Guanghua School of Management.
More About the “Series Company Visit Events"
Initiated by Guanghua Career Development Center of Peking University (CDC), the activity aims to build a bridge of in-depth communication between students and enterprises through field visits, help students broaden their horizons, and provide enterprises with zero-distance access to Guanghua students.
It has been 15 years since 2005 when the Career Development Center held the first event. Guanghua students have traveled to Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Suzhou, Wuxi, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and other places to exchange and visit hundreds of enterprises in various industries and fields, so as to fully show the style of Guanghua students to enterprises.
