I applied through college or university. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Bain & Company (San Francisco, CA) in Oct 2010
Interview
Did recruiting through school. First rounds with 2 separate 40 minute interviews; did behavioral and case for both of these. Got feedback from interviewers as I moved on to second round. Second rounds were in the office with three 1 on 1 interviews; one was more of a mini-case and mostly fit then the other two were mainly case and a little fit.
People ALL throughout were extremely friendly--I was expecting to get toasted/severely stress tested by the senior management in final rounds (did ibanking interview before and that was brutal) but they were incredibly open and felt I could really show them my stuff. Seems like the ACs drive the culture and it'd be really fun to work in the company!
Interviewers were really nice, but the process was difficult. Standard level cases and they expected you to take them through multiple business problems. If you practice casing frequently with multiple partners, you should be fine.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Please walk me through how you would approach this case.
2 cases for R1. Pretty straightforward cases about revenue optimization opportunities. There was a little bit of market sizing but all data needed was given. No behaviorals asked in round 1 for me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What office did you choose and why? Do you have competing offers?
2 rounds, 1st round 2 small cases, not very difficult , market entry cases.
2nd long case with a deck to read and prepare answers..45 mins to read, 15 mins to answer