Pros
BCG was a great place to work in many ways. The benefits are second to none and the people you work with are some of the nicest people I have ever met. There are smart people everywhere and most are very humble about it. It was rewarding to be in a culture and a company that was growing so rapidly. People worked hard and the senior leadership did care about certain aspects of everyday life in a way that was productive and helpful. As a non-consultant, the work was hard and demanding just like consultants. BCG is like a family and they take care of you. BCG does care about affinity groups and does a great job of trying to be inclusive of people with different background.
Cons
Cons for BCG in general: -BCG management and leadership made it clear that consultants come first and everyone else is second. While this makes sense in some regard (consulting is the business), it was often disheartening to not feel as valued (ex: women@BCG affinity group is only reserved for women consultants). Living as a non-consultant at BCG was often like a second-class citizen. Cons for recruiting: -Unlike the consultant world, Business Services and recruiting, in particular, does not have an up or out model. Employees who are lazy and not meeting standards are not held accountable. It seemed like BCG rather keep an inefficient, lazy employee who has been working at BCG for 3-4 years at a substandard quality, rather than hire someone new. - The promotion structure is absolutely archaic. You are not promoted based on accomplishments or good work, you are promoted based on your time at the company. All of this reinforces the above issue. There is no incentive for tenured employees to work hard. - There is absolutely no autonomy. It is almost impossible to make changes or create solutions because the approval process takes forever. Senior management has too many issues to solve but has to meet and discuss all of them multiple times. Very inefficient use of everyone's time.