Pros
- The people and culture are by far the biggest pro. Very smart and passionate, like most of those in the industry, but Bainies generally are more down to earth and supportive. I don't think the "fratty" tag applies anymore, but the people generally are fun in their nerdy ways. - Brand name on your resume helps you get your foot in the door in many places (if you want to do strategy... if you don't, then don't wait to long to get out). - Global trainings are fun and great way to network across the world. - If you want to limit your travel (to the extent you can in consulting) and actually get to know people in your office, then Bain's office staffing model is a much better fit vs. a McKinsey type of model. I actually had a few cases locally.
Cons
- Yes, there is some exciting work but the proportion of heavy project management and process-oriented cases is way higher than I was led to believe during recruiting. Lots of merger integration, PMO and organization projects. I didn't join consulting to build Gantt charts and org structure boxes all day (not that there's anything wrong with it inherently but it's not a good fit for me). Management has also said they plan on competing more in battleground areas like procurement going forward. Expect mix of sexy strategy cases to go down. - The flip side of the office staffing model is that you have less control of what you get staffed on and are more likely to get put on projects you have no interest in. You wanted a customer strategy case in tech? Too bad, there's a 6 month merger integration case in industrials staffing up and you're the only person in the office available for it. If industry matters to you, think hard about which offices you want to join and ask during recruiting what they work on most. Staffing is often a black box and you have no idea why decisions were made without any input whatsoever from you. - MBA hires new to Bain are poorly integrated vs. returning Associate Consultants and are definitely lower on the totem pole. This is especially evident in geographies where MBAs aren't quite as prevalent as in the US (Europe and Australia for example) but it holds in the US as well. Some offices are really really bad at this so do your homework. - A lot of tech, tools and shared services are way behind competitors. You'd be surprised at how much low-value add grunt work you'll have to do compared to other consulting firms that efficiently allocate it and optimize work based on what different roles do best. One example of this is how much time is spent doing expenses because of an antiquated system. I had been hearing for 2 years that the expense system was being improved but nothing had yet been done and people still had to spend a silly amount of time on it. - Standard for professional services, but the quality of life just isn't good despite what you hear during recruiting. I don't know why people insist on saying during recruiting that 55 hours is a typical week - it's not, 55 hours is a great week. I can count on my two hands the number of times I worked less than 60 in three years.
