I have always wondered this. Why does Bain seem to be so far behind in recruiting advanced degree candidates compared to McKinsey and BCG? The perception, at least at my school, has become that Bain just really doesn't want to take the risk of hiring them.
But that would mean that (in my opinion), they are losing out competitively in hiring the best & smartest. Also, as their reputation becomes more and more solidified as not being APD-friendly, people will lose interest in applying there as well. Would love to hear some thoughts on this.
From my (limited) understanding -and I may be wrong- Bain is bottom/undergraduate analyst heavy and also it's the smallest of the MBB.
Your perception is reality. Bain historically hasn't hired as many non-MBA candidates compared to BCG and McKinsey - however, that has started to change over the past few years. Agreed that we're losing out on quality candidates.
Bain has internally committed more resources to beefing up APD hiring; however, it'll likely take a few more years before the process/pipeline is as robust compared to McKinsey and BCG. At my office (smaller NA), we did do a full round of APD interviews and took 1 PhD. I'd expect this to increase at my office steadily. Also, likely to be larger at bigger offices or where there's more universities nearby.
Note - my view is NA-centric and office-specific. Don't have full insight into other offices.
Things are changing at Bain in this regard. I was given to understand that there is some internal disagreement in the company about the value of APD hires with San Francisco leading the way in terms of interest in APDs and some of the east coast offices lagging way behind.
From the hip, I suppose it might be linked to the mix of work that Bain typically gets--less in healthcare and tech than McK and BCG. Perhaps they reason that, given the financial chops it takes to work in PEG, the cost of training PhDs (in excess of what it takes to train MBAs) outweighs the upside.
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