From being a BCG employee to becoming founder of product powering BCG’s global talent strategy

In the hyper-competitive world of global management consulting, securing an offer at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is an extraordinary achievement. With a global acceptance rate of just 1%, the recruitment process is statistically tougher than gaining entry into the undergraduate programs of Harvard or Stanford. The firm filters hundreds of thousands of applicants through a relentless gauntlet of case studies designed to identify the absolute peak of analytical and strategic thinking.

For most, crossing this threshold is a career-defining destination. For Smarthveer Sidana, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, it was the opening chapter of a remarkable entrepreneurial journey. After consulting at BCG for nearly two years, Sidana took a leap of faith to launch his AI startup, HIreQuotient.
His journey came full circle. Sidana returned to his former employer not as an applicant, but as a global strategic partner. The platform engineered by HireQuotient is now BCG’s official first-round assessment gateway globally. Whether a candidate is applying from IIT Delhi, Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton, their very first round of interview is powered by Sidana’s platform.

Advertisement

The “poet and quant” of IIT Delhi

The roots of Sidana’s path trace back to IIT Delhi, where he balanced rigorous academics in Engineering with deep institutional leadership. He became one of the rare undergraduates in the institute’s history to win more than ten major awards, including the Amit Garg Ethical Leadership Award, the Sumant Sinha Sustainability Leadership Award, and consecutive overall distinctions.
Sidana’s academic promise took him across the globe. He secured research roles at Imperial College London and University of British Columbia. He was also selected for elite global scholarship programs at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore, Tsinghua University, and many other universities. Academic mentors and global business leaders, including Dr. Bernd Waltermann, former Chairman of BCG Southeast Asia, have described Sidana as a rare “blend of IQ and EQ” – a leader who matches a world-class analytical brain with deep empathy.

Dismantling the recruitment bottleneck

Sidana noticed a systemic corporate bottleneck. Recruiters spend up to 85% of their time doing not so human work which can be done via AI, while human recruiters spend time talking to candidates and doing more human-like work. “How can we make hiring more inclusive and efficient, while removing unconscious bias?” Sidana asked. This question led him to build HireQuotient.

The ultimate client proof

Deploying software within an elite firm like BCG is an entirely different challenge than pitching to a standard corporate client. BCG’s internal technology and talent teams guard their recruitment pipeline with uncompromising standards.
Today, the partnership has scaled globally. Sidana’s success has not gone unnoticed. He was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2024 and selected for Entrepreneur Magazine’s 35 Under 35 in 2022.