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Case Study: High-Volume Campus Recruiting for a Big 4 Management Consulting Firm

joseph cole

Updated on September 8, 2025

Case Study: High-Volume Campus Recruiting for a Big 4 Management Consulting Firm

joseph cole

Updated on September 8, 2025

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The Challenge: Hiring at Speed and Scale in Campus Recruiting


Every year, Big 4 management consulting firms face one of the toughest hiring challenges in the world: recruiting thousands of top technical candidates straight from university campuses. For one global consultancy, the stakes were especially high. They needed to elevate their employer brand with tech students, test candidates’ real-world capabilities, and move quickly enough to secure the best talent before competitors did.

The volume alone was daunting. Campus recruiting in India is notoriously competitive; millions of engineering graduates enter the workforce each year, but fewer than 20% are considered employable in IT roles. Attracting, assessing, and hiring the right candidates requires a modern, scalable approach.

The Solution: A Branded Hackathon to Engage Top Talent


The management consulting firm partnered with Glider AI to launch a nationwide campus hackathon designed to attract and evaluate top tech talent. The event targeted 30 of India’s leading engineering and technology universities, creating a large-scale recruiting drive built on interactivity and skills validation.

Glider AI provided the infrastructure to make it happen:

  • A fully branded microsite to manage registrations and showcase the firm’s employer brand.
  • AI-powered assessments and hackathon challenges aligned to cybersecurity and real-world problem-solving.
  • Logistics support for a high-volume campaign, targeting 60,000 potential candidates.

Over 5,000 students registered, and through Glider AI’s secure platform, the event incorporated AI proctoring to ensure fair play and eliminate cheating.

The Skills: What Mattered in Cybersecurity Recruiting


Finding the right candidates went beyond checking resumes. This firm needed students who could apply technical skills under pressure, communicate effectively, and stay resilient in high-stakes environments.

Key skills evaluated included:

Cybersecurity & Threat Response: Candidates tackled interactive challenges that simulated live cyberattacks, testing their ability to detect, analyze, and respond quickly.

Technical Problem-Solving: Timed assessments pushed students to apply coding, logic, and systems knowledge under strict deadlines.

Collaboration & Communication: Even the best technical solution fails if it can’t be explained. Candidates were measured on how clearly they could present their approach in a way clients and teammates would understand.

Integrity in Assessment: With thousands of participants, fairness was essential. AI proctoring ensured that results reflected each student’s actual technical ability, not outside assistance.

The Results: Stronger Brand, Stronger Hires


The hackathon quickly became a marquee event on campuses, strengthening the firm’s visibility with top engineering schools.

  • 60,000+ candidates engaged across 30 universities.
  • 5,000+ registrations from motivated students.
  • 3 winners selected, showcasing elite problem-solving and technical ability.
  • Improved employer branding, with students and faculty citing the event as one of the most competitive and exciting campus opportunities.
  • Recruiter feedback highlighted reduced screening effort thanks to AI-powered skills assessments and cheat-proof evaluation.

As one talent acquisition leader of the firm shared:

“The enthusiastic participation at every stage is a testimony to how the Fiercest Competitor was uniquely positioned as a marquee event in Cyber at key engineering schools, elevating our brand at campuses. The recruitment team and Glider AI worked as one, and this event is an exceptional milestone.”

The Takeaway: Reinventing Campus Recruiting with Skills-Based Hiring


Campus recruiting is changing. Traditional approaches, resumes, exams, unstructured interviews, simply can’t scale to meet demand or separate the best candidates from the crowd. By integrating skills-based hiring with AI-powered skills assessments, this Big 4 management consulting firm was able to attract thousands of students, validate skills in real-world scenarios, and build a stronger employer brand in the process.

For global consultancies and firms with high-volume hiring needs, the lesson is clear: high-volume hiring doesn’t have to mean sacrificing quality. Skills-first, AI-enabled recruiting not only helps fill roles faster; it ensures candidates are ready to perform in the moments that matter most.

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