Bain & Company

Graduate Careers at Bain & Company

Bain looks to top European and US schools when seeking its next crop of candidates and encourages applications from all backgrounds: undergraduates, MBAs, Masters, graduate students and PHDs – with degrees ranging from history and philosophy to economics.

The firm hosts recruiting events all over the continent. In the UK, Bain is a frequent visitor to the London School of Economics, London Business School or Oxford and Cambridge.However, the firm also welcomes applications from students not on the usual university target list.

Once hired, Bain typically moulds its consultants into generalists. The firm encourages work on a whole range of projects across different fields, and places a strong emphasis on training, with consultants meeting worldwide for intensive sessions.

The Hiring Process

Interested candidates should submit an application (CV and cover letter) to their preferred location, but also specify the other sites they would be interested in. Beware: competition is fierce, so Bain is quite selective when it comes to granting interviews.

As soon as you submit your application, you should receive a confirmation email. The wait will be over by early January, when you will be informed of the outcome of your application and if successful, asked to interview a week or two later.

The process generally involves two rounds of interviews, which are slightly different depending on the role you’re applying for. Those applying for an associate consultant role can expect two 30 minute case/experience interviews in round one, followed by three 35 to 45minute case interviews in the second. MBAs and consultants should be prepared for two case interviews in the first round and two to four case/experience interviews in the second.

The first interview will be with two ‘Bainies’ – one associate consultant and one consultant – and consists of two parts. Candidates will initially field a handful of questions about their work history and motivations for the role, before spending 20 minutes or so on a case study. These studies are based on real situations, not hypothetical scenarios; and as such, Bain is looking for practical solutions, not academic ones. There’s also some time for Q&A at the end. For the second interview, get ready for a case study with a Bain manager. They will begin by giving you detailed background on the problem – no need to panic as you’ll get time to write these down! You will then be asked to analyse the problem and offer solutions. The case study question will be something like this: ‘The Chief Executive of a fruit juice manufacturing company in Spain has called in Bain. The company's profits have fallen by 20% in the last financial year. Bain has been asked to help work out what has gone wrong and how to fix it. I want you to structure the problem and work through to a possible solution. Also expect numerical cases, as Bain likes to put its candidates' mathematical prowess to the test. For an overview of the questions you might be asked, go to www.joinbain.com, pick an office and pay special attention to the explanation of the interview process.

You will be informed by the end of the day whether or not you’ve made it through to the second round. If you have, you will be invited to attend three interviews in London about two weeks later. Two of these will be similar to the case study interview that you had in the first round. The third interview will be a written case study, where you will have 40 minutes to answer written questions on a hypothetical problem. You will then run through your answers verbally with your interviewer. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you don’t understand a term – they are not expecting you to be business extraordinaires – but they do want to see your strategic and analytical skills in action.

Internships

As in most cases, an internship at Bain provides an invaluable springboard to joining the ranks as a full-time employee. Moreover, internships offer a fantastic opportunity to see what life as a consultant is really like – they provide an insight into the firm, its culture and people. Most participants leave Bain’s internship programme happy to accept a full-time offer.