When I first became a strategy consultant, two aspects of the job appealed to me most: learning how to solve complex business problems based on logic and creativity, and the chance to interact with senior clients from a breadth of industries.

BCG offers exactly that. However, it is the people that make me even more excited about the company. I really feel fortunate to work with colleagues who are smart, sincere, intellectually curious and highly motivated. To me, the combination of all this makes BCG stand out as the truly unique place it is.

Merel joined BCG in the Netherlands in 1999. Sheis a member of the recruiting team in the Amsterdam office.

She spent five years abroad, working in San Francisco and in Buenos Aires after she graduated from business school. She has worked in several industries, but focuses most of her time on consumer goods and retail clients.

Outside of work, she is a passionate traveler, snowboarder, dancer, and sushi fan.

She holds a Masters Degree in financial econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

After having studied international economics and finance in Tilburg with some interesting side-steps in Utrecht (Rabobank), Taipei (National Taiwan University) and Frankfurt (BundesBank), I had a predictable future as an economist with the government or a bank ahead of me.

Only after my Visiting Associate period with BCG did I consider a career beyond economics. That decision in itself was very tough―I still consider economics to be the most interesting thing in the world but having made the decision, the choice of BCG was a very simple one.

I cannot imagine any other junior position that provides you with the impact I have experienced with BCG so far—calculating a business case for an international joint venture that made it to the front page of the Financial Times comes first to mind.

But I have also had great achievements on a smaller scale, such as putting structure to a seemingly endless discussion between a client’s two senior managers, or making fun of BCG’s partner group in front of all my colleagues at our annual spring outing.

In an environment that truly allows you to discover your limits and shortcomings, I myself have made progress I had not considered myself capable of, of which managing my work-life balance to a more than satisfying level outweighs all the others.

After a three month internship in 2004, Thomas joined The Boston Consulting Group in February 2005.

Thomas holds a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in macroeconomics from Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

One of the greatest strengths of BCG is the focus on diversity. If you look at the people at BCG you will have a hard time finding duplicates in background and experience, let alone in personal interests! This respect for uniqueness is really cultivated, with colleagues always tending to mention and respect the unique things about one another.

The focus on diversity also manifests itself in the highly personalized career paths people at BCG are helped to pursue. BCG is exceptionally accommodating in tailoring a development program that fits your individual wishes and specific needs. For me, this really became apparent when I was looking for a secondment opportunity in the media industry. It took only one call by a BCG partner to get a job interview with a board member of a leading international media company. Afterwards, BCG managed the process and my staffing commitments very smoothly so I could start just one month after my job interviews.

Matthijs Tetteroo joined the Amsterdam office of BCG in November 2007. He holds an MS in economics and business, and an MA cum laude in Dutch law.