Q&A: Bain SAC

• Exits from MBB for people with more experience (e.g., associate professor or  MD/MBA who worked as consultant in the NHS) 
  • Hmm a good question, with a lot of nuance to it. Short answer is probably: Yes, but nothing Earth shattering. I've definitely seen more ex Doctors go to healthcare startups while your avg run-of-the-mill C / M who did their whole career at Bain is more likely to exit to PE or to a more traditional Corp Strat role
  • However, within MBB you absolutely have the opportunity to specialise to a sufficient degree to facilitate exits into your chosen industry. This is probably more true at McK and BCG, because at Bain you don't specialise before SM level
  • That being said, certain fields / startups will greatly value relevant past experience (like those HC startups I mentioned who tend to prefer doctors)
• Is age a factor in attrition? Guessing 50:50 odds for a person starting as a post-MBA consultant to stay until SM accurate?
  • Hmm at the moment, I'd say the post-MBA Cs in London are more likely to be closer to 20-30% to make it to SM, given attrition this year (we offered a package for Senior Cons and Ms to leave and a lot of people took it)
  • As far as age being a factor:
    • For promos? No, not in what I've seen here over the last 2 years
    • For hiring? No, plenty of people coming at all ages
    • For exits? I'd say no professionally, but perhaps yes personally (if you're older, you're more likely to have a family and want to prioritize WLB)

• How’s the business environment? Does it feel like “normal”?
  • Business is definitely picking up (globally and in London) for us, we just had our mid-year town hall a couple of weeks back. However, Bain is quite conservative about those things, so no one will say that things are better until they are sustainably so (which is fair). So give it another quarter or two for people to be more comfortable saying things are looking up
  • Feeling normal? Hmm, I'd say no actually, but unrelated to business itself. More of a factor of our current structure in the London office which needs some correcting (we hired a ton in 21-22, slowed down massively in 23-24). What this means is ACs are very much in high demand in the office right now. Mood is not as giddy as '22, but hopefully things improve soon

Hmm I dont think so. Pretty sure it's still closed, and only grad recruiting reopens in Sept. FYI, for us grads include those with 2YOE. So, that might include you.

Really not sure when it will reopen. I actually think we really should push harder on recruiting now, as we'll run the risk to run out of ACs otherwise. The problem is hiring experienced hire ACs means they often come in at a higher level (e.g., 2nd year AC) and work quite well, so get promoted early, meaning they act as "ACs" for only a short period, vs. hiring new grads, who are more likely to remain ACs for the full 2 years (not counting high performers getting early promos)

We actually have a lot of former Doctors here

The hours certainly won't be a big shock vs being a doctor, but maybe the work will feel a bit "meaningless" vs. actually helping people, since we're really just making slides at the end of the day (sometimes those help our clients, but often they end up parked somewhere - and sometimes there are scandals later, as all firms have had)

I'd recommend looking at case interview early and seeing what you think about it. The job is a lot like that, so while it'll be weird and a bit difficult at first, once you start getting good at it, hopefully you start enjoying the process. If you have casing, you will not enjoy the job very much. You could still pass interviews & do well, but it won't be very fun

Also reach out to other former doctors in consulting:

• MBB - for more generalist pathways
• LEK / ZS - for more life science type of work
  • I'm sure there are others life science specialists, but cant think of any

• Why work for Bain?
  • I'll take the position of someone who already wants to go into consulting and thus is choosing between, say, Bain / BCG / McK.
  • You like red, you never wanna let another Bainie fail, .... ok probably none of that :D
  • We do have the largest DD practice of the 3 and place the most (relative to size) into PE - but objectively the other 2 also do very well there
  • We have a more office-based staffing model, so you work with people from your home office, even if it's a travel case, you'll travel with people from your office
  • We have a slower progression ladder than McK / BCG, meaning that while it's still up or out, you will have more time to get acclimatised to each level, and you will have more runway to get better at each "job" - the flip side is if you're a superstar performer, you'll go slower than at McK, for example
• Why hire Bain?
  • I'm not a Partner, and I haven't worked for or with BCG / McK before, so I feel that my answer here would be disingenuous, as I do not know how they operate with clients
  • Objectively, we are all more similar than we are different, so really it comes down to who the client knows / likes more (and sometimes which firm has the biggest specialty in a given sector)

I'll start with your 2nd question first.

• Unis
  • We hire from any school really, but let's be honest Oxbridge has a shine and a premium to it, no debate there. However, we've made a lot of effort to diversify our pool of applicants, and interviews themselves are CV blind, so CV will only help you get through screening, nothing else. Oxbridge is still 30-35% of the office, then London Unis are another ~30-40%, and the rest are MBAs or other unis (I'm in that last group).
  • We have a lot of Bristol / Edinburgh / UCL / Nottingham grads around.
• AC Interview criteria
  • While I can't give you the specifics, I can say that there is a scoring system in place, which is actually quite well thought out, and I have found it very useful when interviewing. Once you look at the criteria objectively, you often realise that candidates were better than you thought (this can happen because a very good candidate skews your perception + you're too used to the job)
  • There is also a post-interview briefing where we make sure to rate candidates consistently across criteria. Making sure no one person has a skewed negative / positive view of a given criterion or type of candidate
  • It's not perfect, it has its flaws, but I think it works pretty well (I certainly dont have a better system in mind)

• Travel
  • I'd say ~20-40% of cases in GP have some sort of travel, depending on the week / month. That's due to a mix of (i) being at the client office and (ii) supporting other EMEA cases
  • For UK-based travel, that's mostly London or the Midlands (sometimes Scotland); for EMEA, that's most often Paris / DACH / Nordics / Madrid / Amsterdam, rarely anyone else
  • PEG has nearly 0% travel, the only times you do is if you're staffed on a cross-office DD and the team wants to colocate for 1 week
  • Most people are in-office or WFH. I'm a WFO kinda guy, but many many people only come to the office 1-2 times a week
• Hours
  • As an AC I tracked at 55h, now I track closer to 55-60h, depending on the week / case. Most Cons I know track same as me now, Ms and above often do more, but have slightly better control over it
  • PEG is more consistent (basically every week is 55-60h), whereas GP will have more variation (have done 45h and 65h, and known people doing 70-75h on bad weeks)
  • However, early nights are respected, you dont work weekends, holidays are respected too

I was working FT and staffed at the time, so I came in at 8am, and worked for 30-45mins every weekday, and at the weekend I'd do another 2-4h combined. Did that for ~5-6 weeks before taking the test. I did do a 2nd go at the test 3 weeks later and improved marginally

Both tests were online (not a fan of the online format). also, I prepped for the original GMAT, havent dont the Focus version

My friends used Magoosh and liked it, I used only the official GMAT materials, and got 730 in the end, so happy enough with it

Can I ask what you mean by graduate programme?

If you mean the undergrad internship, I will admit I am not sure, as in London, Bain doesn't do undergrad interns.

For MBA interns (summer associates), whole different story, as the background kinda doesn't matter.

Please let me know if you meant something else, then hopefully I can be more helpful.

I think it's viewed favourably (?). Being honest, outside of Oxbridge / London Unis / Warwick, the remainder of universities in the UK are viewed more or less as one group

I myself have a pretty bad undergrad, but I got in as an experienced hire (and with an advanced degree, but not MBA). Like I mentioned before, there's been an intentional effort to go for candidates outside of the "historical" pool of applicants, so now I know when we look at CVs, we're pretty university agnostic (outside of a few notable exceptions). So, Nottingham / Bristol / Manchester / Durham / Exeter / Edinburgh / etc. etc., they're all equal before our CV screening

1. PE Exits in recession / slow growth periods
   • It did definitely slow down, I'm not sure whther funds slowed down their own recruiting, but some people I know definitely delayed looking for exits
2. Size of PE funds for Exits
   • Definitely seen everything from LMM to MF, I'd actually say MF were the most represented, with some UMM (only know of 1-2 LMM exits)
   • Also know some Ops team exits, but those I wouldn't count in general

• CV Screening
  • I don't know the answer to this, as I would only come in at the inverview stage, and we do these CV blind, so all I know is that the person passed
  • What I can say is that it's definitely quite holistic across work experience / education / extra curriculars / online tests (but dont know what the weights are, if any)
• Profile for passing
  • Got something as the last answer to my last Q&A: link
  • Got something too from my first Q&A, see first answer: link
  • Now, if you're asking about what the "typical profile at Bain London" looks like, I factually can't help you. While it has to be the case that, statistically speaking there is one type of profile more represented than others, the genuine diversity in backgrounds is incredibly vast. Just of my friends, I know the following backgrounds off the top of my head:
    • Lawyer
    • Econ consulting
    • Investment banking
    • History grad
    • Classics grad
    • Chemistry PhD
    • Biology grad
    • Engineer
    • Strategy consulting
    • English grad
  • And if you ask for unis most represented, that's Oxbridge / Imperial / Kings / UCL / Warwick and then LBS / INSEAD for MBA, but again off the top of my head, I can think of 10 other universities I know people are from, and all are very strong performers

I dont know anyone who exited there, but looking on LinkedIn, looks like a fair few people are at BainCap now who used to be at Bain & Co, and who know people I know, so I guess not that uncommon, but not much in the last 2 years

1. Tips for MBB fit interviews
   • Can only speak to Bain, as I dont recall how BCG did it when I applied, and I think McK is a bit different
   • First, ALWAYS use the STAR method for answering. So, practice practice practice. And keep your answers short (2mins is enough, if they need more, they can ask followups)
   • Second, signpost your communication (like Im doing here), it's important and helps keep a coherent structure to your comms
   • Third, if you have not experienced some situation yourself, be upfront and discuss how you genuinely believe you would handle it (I find honesty is best in those situations)
   • As for your other question "questions that surprised me", no not really. Bain has some almost around professional standards / real work situations (eg what you do if you mess up in a client meeting or someone else does, etc.). So, respond with what you genuinely believe to be the right course of action (you can also check our operating principles to see if they align with your own values)
2. What would be your recommended approach to cases over the next 10 weeks or so?
   • The plan seems reasonable enough, I would however skip doing cases by yourself entirely or literally only do that for 2-3 days over 3-5 cases, no more. It's not exactly useless (I did it in my prep and many people do), but compared to the real deal, it's about as useful as learning to swim online
   • Get practicing with many different people as soon as possible
   • Also, I'd recommend doing drills (for basic maths & for structuring) is super helpful
   • As for MBB coaches, I think if you're serious about applying, it doesn't hurt to do everything you can. I have found it helpful in building the confidence needed to know I'd be fine during interviews (more so than learning anything per se)
   • Additional resources:
     • For reference, here is the plan I followed, but I only had 3 weeks to prep, so I had to be quite crunched: link
     • Also for reference, here is a reply I left before about casing itself: link
3. What case prep would you recommend outside of just doing practice cases?
   • I do like that question, and I find it's not asked often enough, so kudos
   • I actually do recommend doing some reading / learning on random industries & on business and strategy at large
   • I don't recommend any books (I truly think they are all useless), but I do recommend reading and listening to business news (FT, WSJ, BusinessWeek, etc.). You can listen to some business / consulting / PE podcasts too
   • One thing you can do sometimes is when you come across an article in the FT / WSJ, treat it almost like the prompt to a case and see (1) how you'd structure your approach to answering it or (2) how you'd size the underlying market
     • For example (a completely made-up example): say an article reads "Ford Motor Company to close out plant in Country X", that could easily become "Our client is a large automotive OEM facing some difficulties and thinking about closing operations in one of their plants. How would you advise the CEO about the best course of action?"
     • Of course, try to do this before reading the article! It's good mental gymnastics to get into the habit of casing

• Sustainability as you progress
  • AC / SAC / C - It's indeed very achievable, and completely expected and built in
  • M - usually they don't get an early night (unless there's an SM on the case too)
  • SM - definitely no more early night, but also more control over your work in some ways: you get to pick when you review materials (of course, letting your team know so they have visibility), you set the times for client meetings (within the limits of what's possible for them, first and foremost), but most importantly you should aim to leverage your team for the bulk of the work while you focus on orchestration and guiding the process along. I find that most SMs with poor WLB are the ones too deep into the details, checking every Excel and basically redoing a lot of the work (either because they struggle to let go or because they're really Consultants at heart who happened to get promoted). That being said, there's little to no reason to work weekends, unless that is your preference (you value finishing earlier in the week but working a bit more on a Sunday afternoon, say) or you have a very demanding client
  • AP / Partner - At this stage, very different, APs going for promo will overwork themselves in the majority of cases (understandable, there's a lot at stake), while Partners will usually have the most control over their WLB and some manage to keep it to ~55-60h per week (from what they've told me, but who knows maybe they're lying and work all the time. I'd be inclined to believe them, though), while some are proper workaholics and seem to work all the time, but that's more driven by personality and who your client is, obviously
  • [edit] Forgot promo timeline, in London it's: AC (2 years), SAC (1y), C (2y), M (1y), SM (2/3y), AP (2/3y) - high performance can move the needle a bit here and there by 6 months or so, which can add up over time (however a high performing SAC may be an ok C only, or even a bad M, since the jobs change a little at every stage)
• Business school & career goals
  • I am going on MBA this very summer actually, specifically because it aligns with my career goals, however not ones with Bain (don't really see myself enjoying looking at SteerCo decks for the next 20 years), even though the job is fun and I like the people a lot
  • I will be sponsored, and I will have to return to my firm, but my goal is not to stay long term at Bain (nor do I need the MBA to get promoted at all, hell I'd make Consultant by the end of the year normally) - which I have quite openly communicated to basicaly everyone :D
  • The goal is to boost my chances at my chosen exit post consulting, where doing an MBA will help me:
    • Facilitate a move to the US (given our current situation where we are not doing much in terms of office transfer), where my target industry is largest (I'm aiming for the video games industry)
    • Gain a qualification more meaningful to future US employers (T15 MBA vs no-name degrees from Europe)
    • Hopefully leverage an internship in my chosen industry (helping me showcase interest and experience in the field, however small)
    • Expand my professional network beyond Bain and hopefully more calibrated toward my target industry
    • And to a lesser extent, gain some additional knowledge / experience in product / tech, which I wouldn't be able to build at Bain

Hmm for the first question, most ACs would leave either for Sr Analyst or Associate type roles in S&O teams. also often too junior to exit to PE (more likely to happen at SAC or C level)

For Cs leaving, that can be anything from a "Head Of" type role at a start up to an "Associate Director", depending on the naming convention at the firm. Really, role wise, that's more like a Senior Manager type role, except in startups, but thats more complicated there (more dynamic environment)

Also a few people leaving to become Chief of Staff at various organisations, and that role can be anything from a member of the leadership team, to a glorified Exec Assistant to the CEO or other C-suite

No clue about avg salaries, people dont exactly advertise those when they leave, and I couldnt source it from them either (I'm nosy, but not that nosy :D)

You really have no real reason to get near this level of financial modelling in most of your projects

On occasion, you can be expected to build an income statement, and do some calcs on it, but hardly anything noteworthy for someone who wants proper exposure to financial modelling

I've known people who'd build mini DCFs for themselves when working on a new DD, kinda for the hell of it, and because they wanted the practice. Other than that, really not much in that realm

I have managed someone as an AC, but I was near my promotion to SAC. Some people make it to Consultant without ever managing anyone (though that's not really the norm), especially if they're MBA hires, since they join as Cons

However, as a Consultant you'll have to manage someone at some point, with near certainty (it'd be unlikely that you wouldn't)

By and large, working in strategy consulting should very much help you build the operational view of how a company operates and how an industry's different business models work & why (and where the competitive advantages are, what they mean for customers, etc.).

Of course, the more you work in one industry, the more you'll know and understand about it, while doing a more generalist gig (like at Bain), can make one's understanding a bit more shallow within industry, but make you quite good at ramping up and getting up to speed on a new sector really quickly (you also get to view how similar business models fare across different sectors, etc.) and seeing what works and what doesn't on a more macro level (until you eventually specialise)

Not gonna lie, a little surprised to see someone from IB going into S&O, but to be fair if they covered one specific industry for a while, they should have a pretty good understanding of how that industry operates

I think we're all a little bit out of our depths at first when we jump into industry, but all we can do is learn fast, make sure we add value where we can (even if that's just doing pure PMO style stuff at first), and start to learn the ins and outs of our new company / product / service / etc.

Not necessarily a big thing, but I do know a few people who went or are on externship now (ie secondments)

In terms of your specific Qs, I think it's best if I go bullet point on this:

• Can you do strat / implementation work? Yes, it does happen, though that's not always what we do
• Do you arrange it yourself? Depends, in that we do have a stock of currently open externships but if you source one yourself (or your target industry / firm isn't huge on those), you can always customise a role / rotation for yourself, even if it takes more effort
• How much do you get paid? As much as the contracts says, so if it's below your Bain salary, that's basically up to you to decide what to do. Bain won't cover the difference
• Do clients offer consultants jobs? Clients sometimes offer jobs to team members after a case (or even while on a case, which is a bit wild to me), but I dont know how common / uncommon this is (hasnt happened to me or anyone I know, but I have heard of it)
  • Hmm not sure how this works, I think salary wise, PE is probably best overall (just because of the very large bonuses, if nothing else), but I'm sure some corporates pay well too
  • Startups can have sweet packages too, if there are stock options
  • You get pretty good client exposure from Consultant onward, sometimes even as an AC / SAC. I never did, because I did PEG and a lot of high-level startegy cases, but I have friends who have had very high exposure to clients very early on

First off, congrats on making it to the final round. Frankly I find the last round to just be more of the same, but your interviewer themselves might be a bit more strict.

As for your situation, below are some thoughts on brainstorming:

• First off, don't be too surprised or dejected by your interviewer asking "What else?" several times during a brainstorming exercise. It doesn't mean anything, they're literally just seeing how far you can go, that is it.
• Second, it can be useful to take a second or two to think before answering. Don't stall too much, but you could rephrase the question / prompt for brainstorming, so that you have a few extra seconds to think and organise your thoughts
• Third, while it is better to be structured there too (e.g, internval vs external drivers, organic vs inorganic growth opportunities, fixed vs. variable costs, etc.), it's also ok to go in the order that comes to you. Hopefully that is also the order of importance. Other than practice and speaking slowly, there's not much else you can do to get better at these things. Feel free to do a few more structuring drills if it helps, but don't be too focused on that.

Overall, better to have a good strong list of ideas for a brainstorming than a perfectly MECE list of just 2 items

I never considered AM / IB or other high finance roles because I just don't enjoy finance much at all. The only field in there I kinda like is PE, but even then, it's marginal.

I've seen enough to know PE isn't for me, both in terms of hours, WLB, and comp. It simply isn't worth it for me. Instead I'm eyeing an industry exit in a few years, ideally in Media & Entertainment, because that's what I find most interesting as a sector (besides strategy consulting).

As for my thoughts on how to weigh those various considerations for choosing your own path, I'd say there are a couple of ways you can look at the problem from your perspective now, especially if you're still quite young:

• Spend some time figuring out what you ultimately want to do. If you know your ultimate goal / target, you can then work backwards what you need to do between where you are now and where you want to end up to achieve this. If your "ultimate goal" is too abstract a concept for now, you can always just think about "what would I want to be doing when I'm 30" instead, and do the same
• Take stock of your current strengths and interests and simply target the best match for those. Whether that ends up being IB, AM, PE, or Consulting, you can simply set yourself up for success by going for what you are most likely to be best at. Each field has some overlap in skillset, but at the margins, where they will differ, you can see if you're better at casing or at LBO modelling, etc.
• Finally, if all else, fails, just pick one :). This is actually my most genuine answer. You said yourself you're still quite young. There's no wrong answer now, so just pick one, go for it for a couple of years, and if you don't like it, switch. There's nothing stopping you from just changing your career after a few years, tons of people do it all the time (I  did it a few times too). What you don't want to have happen is either making no decision because you're too focused on "the optimal path" or forcing yourself to stick to something because you're scared of the opportunity cost or drop in income

Life is too short to be worried about this when you don't yet have people depending on you (kids, family, etc.). So, at the end of the day, if they're all the same to you, pick one, try it, and if it sucks too bad, do something else. And if you don't like that either, change again, that's fine too.

As for moving to the US, yes money is way better, but right now we're certainly not doing intercontinental transfers, but these should come back once business picks up.