Bain & Company Reviews

I have been working at Bain & Company full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Excellent benefits and work-life balance, with numerous opportunities to enjoy esprit events and peer social interactions.

Cons – Defined separation of consulting group from support staff that translates to inequitable lines of compensation.

Advice to Senior Management – Translate the value of 'support staff' in a way that is comparative to consulting group scales.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Bain & Company full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great culture and great perks

Cons – No room for growth at Bain for the consulting support staff

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Bain & Company full-time for more than a year

Pros – Very smart, ambitious colleagues, and high earning potential.

Cons – Completely unsustainable lifestyle. Young managers with little experience managing people.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Bain & Company full-time

Pros – Some of the most talented people around and the marketing story is real - there is a true focus on results and making sure recommendations can be implemented and deliver real value. While there are a variety of personalities at all the consulting firms, Bain under-indexes on "tough" personalities that people are trying to avoid working with, which is where you really feel the "people" difference at Bain.

Cons – The work/life balance is tough as is the case with any consulting firm, and there's a fairly strong bias toward former AC's at the Consultant (post-MBA) level. Coming in new from business school, you'll feel "behind" the former AC's, which is a challenging gap to close as they will tend to get accelerated opportunities and higher level performers to manage early on.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep doing what you're doing. The firm is fantastic and the client results are amazing.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Bain & Company

Pros – Unrivaled culture, brilliant peers, amazing support staff, run environment

Cons – Very little control over cases, managers often don't know how to manage, hard to build industry expertise quickly

Advice to Senior Management – Don't be so answer first with your employees

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Bain & Company

Pros – Great compensation
Great way to gain additional post-MBA experience while exploring a variety of industries
Opportunity to work with clients at a very high level

Cons – Lots of inconsistency at smaller offices.

Growth of Atlanta and Dallas offices exceeded the ability to attract candidates at the level of quality of other North American offices, especially at manager level where they've been brought in by lower-caliber firms.

Reality of travel is that once you get away from an office in a city that has a big base of potential clients, you'll be on the road all the time. Staffing has also become national. Can be hard to build mentors within your home office if staffed under managers based elsewhere.

Some consultants work for the same client for case after case.

Advice to Senior Management – Partners need to stop creating "make-work" engagments where they start a case that's ill-defined just to retain a client, and then waste months on scope when the team is already staffed up. wastes time, wastes client money, and kills morale.

Promote managers from within the office- stop the outside hiring or do a better job of indoctrinating new managers.

Increase transfers from more-desirable offices or else smaller offices' cultures will never catch up.

Find a way to recruit and retain women in Dallas office. Prevent it from becoming a boys' club.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Bain & Company

Pros – Fun, great culture. You will form life long bonds with the people you work with.

Cons – There is a massive disconnect between consulting and administrative employees. The lack of structure of the admin side makes career advancement a nearly impossible. When an oppurtunity would arise the lack of mentiorship leaves the admin staff with almost no chance of moving forward. The salary level is at least 20% lower than other Boston based jobs.

Advice to Senior Management – Start valuing your talented admin staff.

I worked at Bain & Company

Pros – Bain takes its training very seriously, and I could not imagine having a better group of colleagues than the people with whom I worked at Bain.

Cons – You have no control over the industry in which you work, and, often, it seems that senior management has little concern for team sustainability.

Advice to Senior Management – Target recruiting such that you are not looking for the "best" people as you have defined it, but the people whose interest most closely with the work they'll doing at Bain, to reduce burnout.

I have been working at Bain & Company

Pros – Great benefits, great people, good for your resume

Cons – Management does not take needs of admin staff into consideration in providing career advancement and opportunities to succeed,

Advice to Senior Management – Pay attention to the staff you have as well as the consulting team

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Bain & Company

Pros – Great advancement opportunities outside of consulting. Good career track within. Pay for bschool if you agree to come back after 2 years. Can manage people 3 years out of undergrad

Cons – Is a good job if you like consulting. However, advising companies can get tiring. Being in the private equity group is even more exhausting.

Advice to Senior Management – Better staffing transparency would be nice. Hiring more industry experts who have actually worked in industry at the partner levels.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend