Hi guys
Thanks for a great forum! I was hoping that you could help me out. I am starting as a Senior Associate at Bain (Europe) in February, and I would really like to be properly prepared. The thing is that my background is a PhD in Neuroscience and I don't know what they expect from me from day one. I have done Business School courses in managerial economics, economics, strategy and statistics, but that's about it. So my question is; what would be the most important to focus on in terms of being prepared. And if you have any experience from the first weeks/months at Bain I would really like to hear about it.
Thanks alot in advance!
/Martin
Any reason why you made the jump from a Neuroscience background to work at Bain ?
Actually because of two things. 1) I started Business School part-time on the side of my PhD and found it sooooo interesting and 2) what I like in research is the problem-solving and working data-driven and hypothesis-based, and I get all of that plus a high-pace environment and lots of new stuff to learn in consulting!
I am looking so much forward to it :D
Don't have any personal experience... but they will give you lots of training when you start, right? I wouldn't stress about it too much. Take some time to travel, etc., enjoy life before work starts. Maybe talk to some people currently at the firm to see if they have recommendations for how to prep (if anything at all).
They have been telling me that they will put me in contact with someone at the office and that I get a "buddy", however, it is taking forever, and it is now I have the time to do some prep. But yeah, it sounds like their training is pretty solid, I just don't want to be the least prepared at the training either :D
Go on vacation and read a book or two on the company in the process. I'm assuming their training program is pretty damn good.
You'll learn everything you need to know during training and from your case team during your first case. If you have VERY limited experience with excel and powerpoint, you might want to brush up on that so your CTL doesn't lose confidence in you off the bat.
Thanks for your post. I have been using Excel for basic functions and statistics but nothing advanced like VBA etc. I am brushing uo on that watching MrExcel videos on YouTube :) Do you know what skill-level is expected and what the most common tools in excel is being used? Is it mostly sorting data and doing Pivot tables?
Haha no need for VBA on the job so don't worry about that =). I think they assume very little knowledge about excel, but from a personal perspective, you will get more done in a shorter amount of time if you're more comfortable to start with. Mostly working through databases and pivot tables as you said, and the occasional modelling exercise. Sounds like you'll be fine.
Congrats on your offer Santini. Western Europe office ?
Yes, Bain Nordic, working out of Copenhagen.
Don't worry too much! If they bring you on the firm, you're smart enough to catch up with most of the things during training. Plus, all consulting firms put a huge emphasis on teamwork and rest assured there will be people who help you/coach you on your first case. You can also observe best practices from your teammates to improve. In summary, don't sweat. Enjoy your holiday :)
Okay, so I am not expected to hit the ground running Bolt style, that's a relief :D
Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it!
Kind of ironic that these guys are telling you to travel before working at MBB.
I remember asking the exact same question before I started at ATK, and I was told many of the things listed above - travel, relax, etc. So I did just that.
But looking back, I really wish I would have taken the time to really get my powerpoint skills up to par (I was pretty well versed in excel.) While the basics in powerpoint aren't that difficult, building consulting slides is a time consuming art. For example - I remember many times having to go into the advanced color menu to manually change the RGB values so the color of my title boxes matched the client's colors. This is really a minor thing, but when you're first starting out, knowing the shortcuts and how to get things done quickly will make your life easier since you'll save yourself alot of time. It's mind blowing how much time you will put into these slides - ctrl + click to make small adjustments to text boxes, building complex charts / graphs (cut and paste from excel is not always a good idea!), etc.
Based on that, my suggestions:
Reach out to some of the junior consultants to get some sort of global powerpoint template. Bain will likely have some sort of plug-in that has 100's of slide layouts, color schemes, graphics etc. that you can leverage to build slides more easily. Getting familiar with this will give you a little edge when you start.
Also, ask if you can get a copy of the powerpoint training decks that are given to new consultants. There was a great presentation that was given to BA's at ATK that the Associates didn't get, but when I saw it, I wished they would have provided it to us. It had alot of great info relating to slide structure, logic, etc.
When you are staffed on your first project, ask your manager / principal for a few of their decks. They will have a certain "style" that you want to follow - little things like font sizes, layout, etc. Knowing what they like will save you from having to make a ton of edits after you spent hours building the slides
And I do agree that your training and first project(s) will be where you really learn, but at the same time you want to establish a solid reputation on these first projects so these little things help. I remember during our first day of training, one of the Partners said "You want to hit your first project out of the park." Good advice
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