Q&A - 1Y at Bain

Good afternoon everyone,

Some of you probably saw me dumping text walls on some posts in the last few months. I'm very active on this forum because I believe everyone has a duty to help and assist others, as long as they are able (and not everyone comes into consulting with a cousin or their parent who is an MBB partner or big client).

I was on this forum myself before interviewing and found that info for the UK was lacking, and that direct & honest feedback from current MBBers was also a bit light (usually they were either blasé or weirdly unhelpful or had been out for 5+ years).

So, in the spirit of resolving some of that information asymmetry out there, I am here to do a bit of a Q&A / AMA. Feel free to shoot your questions below. If I cannot answer, I will let you know.

A bit of background on me so you know what to ask:

Firm: Bain
Level: AC
Geo: UK
Applied to: Bain London / BCG Paris (pulled out before R2)
Pre-Bain: consulting at FS firm + business intelligence at automotive firm + internship at agribusiness startup
Academics: advanced degree holder (PhD / MD / JD) + other degrees from mostly unknown universities (except one "Tier 2" uni; I'm borrowing the term from another thread I saw, but I don't like this terminology)

Happy to answer everything and anything from interviews to day-in-the-life, or from salary to career progression & exits. Obviously won't mention competitive info, but that's a given.

Feel free to ask questions about McK / BCG too, but my exposure to them is very limited (you probably already know what I know) or about other Bain offices (I'll have limited information, but I can give my best educated guess based on people I know, if I am able).

Disclaimer: you will notice quickly I am very pro-Bain (genuinely very happy in this job) but be sure I will answer truthfully if there are issues / things to improve. Few things worse than going into a new job blindsided.

Final note: If I do say something about McK / BCG and you happen to work there and can correct me, please do so! I'll happily edit responses to include your inputs.

76 Comments

Works at Bain & Company

2y

Most Helpful

Entry point + 1^st year experience

I came in as a first-year AC, as Bain London hires PhDs as ACs (In Germany/US you enter as a Consultant, and I think in Paris as an SAC), which was a little annoying at first, but it’s fine, I get to overperform easily (the bar is relatively low as a first-year if you’ve worked before)
I joined PEG directly, because I wanted exposure to multiple industries / teams and different elements of the consulting toolkit (customer analysis, competitive analysis, market modelling, interviewing, etc.). Did CDDs in Media / Tech / Healthcare / Retail, all pretty interesting. Focus has been mainly UK / Europe (had only two assets that were US-based). My next project will be outside of PEG and will also be Europe-based (in Financial Service, most I can say)

Type of work

One of the things that surprised me at first was the sheer amount of meetings, usually to align / update our leadership team (so the Partners, or the Senior Manager on the case). That’s usually a good 2-3h a day in PEG (since we’re on such a short timeline, ~2-3 weeks, there’s no room for going off course, so need to constantly align)
In a typical 12-14h day, I’d say I probably do 2-4h of those meetings, have about 1h total for lunch/dinner, and the remaining 8-11h being all work (with the bulk happening after 5pm). Those 8-10h of work are typically unevenly distributed over the course of a case: early on you don’t do a lot of slides, except to get a view of what you’re working toward, but most of it is working on the answer (say 70-80%). As you get in the last 3 days working up to a client update, you start spending closer to 50-70% of your time on the slides, and then back and forth with analysis (eg refining, confirming, validating, or adding new data points)

Advanced degrees

In London there definitely are a few of us. I know about ~10 people with advanced degrees (PhDs / MDs), so it may be more of a thing here. Experienced hiring is a bigger thing in Europe / UK than in North America. So, in NA I’m not sure how much of a value-add there would be to it. If you already have one, because that’s what you did, then great, but I wouldn’t get one pre-emptively as a way to add to my profile. Work experience would trump that (and in NA, probably an MBA would be the next entry point)

Interviews + Partner chat

In terms of general prep, I rehearsed and prepped all my answers to all main behavioural questions (leadership / teamwork / etc.) with 1-2 examples each, and recorded myself to make sure I could tell them clearly and simply in 90-120 secs. I have like 50-60 recordings on my phone of me doing that. Followed the ever-proven and effective STAR method, of course.
For Case Prep, I have another post where I discuss my prep (link here). The key take away was to be super tactical and progress-oriented, given that I started caseing only 3 weeks before interviewing
Thinking about it, I don’t think I was ever asked “Why Bain?” although I think BCG did ask me that. I did of course work up some answers just in case. So, for me it was
- Bain was one of the few firms who actually told clients what was wrong / what they didn’t want to hear but needed to hear (and I have seen this several times already since joining. We’ll do the work, but we’ll get to the right answer, that we genuinely believe the client should and can implement)
- of all the people I had spoken to, across firms, I liked Bainies the most, they always made me feel welcome and like they actually wanted to help me. And despite being super busy, never made me feel like I was wasting their time and they had better things to do. Really liked that
- and finally, I wanted to move back to London because I loved the city, missed living in the UK, and wanted to be in a major office hub
My partner chats went pretty well, overall. I was used to talking to executives from my old job and my approach has always been the same: be respectful but don’t overdo it and treat them like people. But objectively, in my final case with a senior partner, I thought I messed it up.
He looked so distracted and unimpressed, I thought he had made up his mind already (based on nothing but my own paranoia). And during the case I did make a small mistake in a market sizing (forgot to multiply by frequency of purchase). Luckily, I caught it, sense checked my maths, and saw my omission in the calculations, so I corrected it (I had the right structure to begin with, just forgot it whilst going through the motions). He called me later that evening to tell me of my offer, so clearly, I had been paranoid.
Just remember that they can also have bad days and have a million other things on their mind at the same time. So, I try to bring a bit of positive energy in the room (or Zoom) to at least not add to it.

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Authored by: Certified Consulting Professional - Associate ConsultantCertified Consulting Pro

FinnesseGod

CO

2y

Thanks for the incredibly detailed answers and debrief!

I do agree with the sentiment from Bain as well. I've spoken to pretty much every consulting firm in N.A. and in all my chats, EY-P, LEK and Bain have stood out the most in terms of conversations and connections. As for the consulting toolkit, I'd love to understand the 100 foot view of things like Market Modelling. Are you gathering sub-setor information from a macro view? Are you building guidnace models similar to the complex ones seen in IB? From a technical standpoint and granular detail view, how in-depth does the analysis go and how does it feed into the recommendation?

For the above barrage of questions, I've seen my fair share of things in technology consulting and my conversations with pure-play shops like O.W. and such, but rarely hear answers as built out as yours.

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Authored by: Certified Consulting Professional - Associate ConsultantCertified Consulting Pro

Works at Bain & Company

2y

Stupid WSO blackout erased my response. Can't be bothered to retype it in detail, but broadlines were:

Market modelling is a cornerstone of most DDs (since most targets we look at are in niche industries)
Generally trying to answer 3 questions: How big? Grows how fast? Which segment is most attractive/defensible?
Usually follow the following general process (top-down):
- Lay down driver tree: high level first (to be validated within 1-2 days) then properly detailed (e.g., by different customer segments x geos x sub-segments x revenue streams, etc.)
- Validate / sense check / test / challenge every assumption (e.g. penetration by geo by customer type), with most data being primary (combination of interviews + surveys)
- Usually have a few secondary sources + a bottom-up view by key competitors to get a triangulation
Occasionally, but rarely, we do build income statements for the target (+ forecast), if relevant. However this is rare because obvs PE funds / IBs can do that better than us, with their arms tied behind their back

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Authored by: Certified Consulting Professional - Associate ConsultantCertified Consulting Pro

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Q&A - 1Y at Bain

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Q&A - 1Y at Bain

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