Booz & Co

Within the last year and a half, Booz & Co separated from its parent company BAH. BAH was bought by the Carlyle Group and focuses on government work whereas the newly independent Booz & Co is focused solely on commercial work and is poised to compete directly with the M/B/Bs of the world.

Unfortunately, Booz & Co doesn't do a lot of targeted advanced degree recruiting, although there is a nice section on their website that states they do hire PhDs, JDs, MDs and the like. I noticed that they are avid recruiters of HBS and Sloan MBAs and schedule a number of events with those institutions.

Using Linked-In, I contacted the Harvard (primarily HBS) recruiter and also a few partners from the Cleveland Office. I also sent a few cold emails to some of the Cleveland partners...the email addresses are easy to figure out.."their name @ booz.com." This was a wildly successful endeavor! Most of the time (75% of the time) I don't get a response to an e-mail or Linked-In request, but in this case probably 75% of the folks at Booz that I contacted actually responded back. This actually says a great deal about the organization to me and speaks very highly of the individuals they hire. Despite their lack of emphasis on hiring PhDs, they were very responsive to my inquiries and made me feel like I could be a valuable contributor to their company.

The partners that I spoke with on the phone were in the Cleveland office. They were both very nice and took at least a half hour out of their day to speak with me. We talked a little bit about work at Booz, the culture, and the different offices. Although I had initially been sold on going back to Cleveland and joining the Cleveland office at Booz, I have gently been redirected towards focusing on the Chicago office as they seem to be a little more focused on healthcare where Cleveland does more consumer/packaged goods and industrial consulting.

During one of my discussions with a Cleveland partner, he thought it would be wise to try and put me on the interview schedule. Within a week I got an email from a senior associate asking if it would be all right to meet and conduct an informal interview. I'm not sure what an "informal interview" means exactly, but I was excited to be a part of the process and I'm assuming that an informal interview could lead to a "formal interview."

We are meeting in Cambridge at a small coffee and dessert store to talk. I will fill you in on the details after they are available!