Pros
Two things make Bain stand out for me. First, the learning and growth is both continuous and highly relevant. My job and the expectations of me are different every six months, and that keeps it a lot of fun. Having spent significant time in both consulting and industry, I can also say with confidence that nearly everything about the skill-set here will serve me well should I choose to step back into a management role. When I compare notes to my business school classmates, many of them are still several years from managing a team or running a real project and are not developing skills that are particularly portable. Second, the community here is great. My colleagues are people I genuinely enjoy and want to spend time with outside the work environment. Again, when comparing notes to friends at other consulting firms or in other industries, this is simply not the case at many other employers.
Cons
The challenges of working at Bain are the same as in any consulting firm. There is limited control over the schedule during the week, particularly in the first couple of years. That said, I have worked virtually no weekends and my travel has never been more than a couple days a week, so it has remained fairly manageable.
