Best place to start your career - Principal Bain & Company Employee Review

5.0
22 Dec 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I can't think of a better place to start your career--amazing learning opportunities, extreme focus on professional development, interesting/important problems to solve, and great people. Staffing model is designed to ensure that you get a range of experiences to develop a well-rounded skillset, preparing you to advance to the next level (a general manager skillset is very transferable to many jobs outside of consulting).

Cons

You will work hard in exchange for those professional development opportunities and interesting problems--that's the deal you make. As a more junior consultant you have less control over your schedule, but that increases significantly as you gain tenure. If you know that you only want to work in a very specific area from the beginning of your career, the model is not designed to accommodate that (and it wouldn't be in your best interest to do so, from a skill development perspective). You are allowed (and expected) to specialize, however, as a manager. From a long-term perspective, the job changes significantly several times over the course of your career--the best consultants are not necessarily the best managers are not necessarily the best partners, but you must play every role along the way.

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5.0
23 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture, amazing people, and a place to learn and grow

Cons

Long hours and high stress environment

5.0
5 Oct 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Welcome to Bain. I'm going to give you a problem that neither the CEO nor his entire management team could solve. And I'm probably going to give you lots of different opinions and imperfect data sources. And then I'll ask you to focus in on where the most value is and convince all those people with different opinions that you're right. But don't worry, I'm also going to give you a Bain team. Those associates and consultants are going to be tenacious in coming up with creative approaches. Those managers and partners are going to knock down barriers for you, connect you where you need to be connected, guide, support, direct and re-direct you. The office support staff is going to fix your computer after you spilled coffee on it for the third time, find you the unfindable data source, and smile and hand you a baked good after you ask for help re-doing dozens of slides. You are empowered and accountable but you are not alone. And the best part is you can't fail. Because after all, what all those people are reinforcing is that a Bainie never lets another Bainie fail.

Cons

Here's how you know you've made it at Bain. The reward for doing a good job is getting a bigger, tougher problem next time. Meaning, you are always solving the easiest problem you will ever solve again. This takes a lot of resilience and active managing of self-expectations to remember that you are not actually getting worse, the problems are just getting harder. So my advice is to remember that. And then take a second to realize that it would be a lot less fun if the reverse were true. And isn't that precisely why you wanted this job in the first place anyway? It sure was for me.

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Bain & Company Response
9y
You have captured the essence of what it means to work here! Thanks for sharing your experience.
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