What Bain looks for when hiring for Consultants

people often get anxious when preparing for case interviews and a while back Martin and I sat down to a quarter conversation on how to prepare for interviews with Bain & Company we went back and watched that video as we were preparing an update and we wrote down all of the things that changed and you know what nothing has changed that video is as relevant today as it was when we originally recorded it there are two things that I would highlight that are worth pointing out first of all our website join Bain calm has become bang calm slash careers and you should go to that URL to find the most current information about Bain & Company the second thing I would point out is I refer to a program called connect with Bain and that program is now expanded and become experience Bain and it includes a huge array of live and online events other than that all of the advice in here is as relevant as it was back when we recorded it enjoy the video hi I'm Martin Potter I work for a global marketing I'm here with Keith Bevans who's our global head of consultant recruiting I'm Keith hi good to see you again hey Martin how are you very well thank you so we wanted to have a chat about you know your on campus a lot throughout the year you meet with a lot of recruits and you get asked often time get asked a lot of the similar questions so I figured it might be great to have a chat here let's go through some of these questions great so first of all sorry to age you here you've been at Bain for almost 20 years now yes since 1996 96 so could you chat a little bit about your career path and what continues to excite you about working here yeah I joined Bain & Company in 96 after finishing my bachelor's and master's in electrical engineering so I accept an engineering background not a business background but I knew I want to go back to business school at some point so I joined Bain & Company because I heard that it was a great way for me to get good business training and hopefully end up at one of the top business schools in the world I worked for four years in our Chicago office went to business school for two years came back to Chicago in 2002 and have been in the Chicago office ever since for the first 17 years of my career I was client-facing so from AC associate consultant all the way through to partner for several years and then I made the transition to leading our global recruiting full-time back in 2013 let's cut to the chase this is going on part of the website which talks about what Bain looks for you know so what has been looked for when it's hiring for our consulting teams there a great question you know we look for a bunch of different things from people that are recruiting to us from campus and from industry and from advanced degree programs what I would say is first and foremost we're looking for people that are problem solvers we're looking for people that have an analytic mindset they're comfortable with numbers they're comfortable doing analytics and the idea there is that we're working for some of the top companies working with their most senior executives we're solving their toughest challenges and we need people who have the analytic capability to tackle those challenges the second thing that we look for is people who are able to connect with other people you know we're in a client service business and we're looking for people who we think can be successful in a client services environment you're where clients can trust their advice where they can connect and listen to clients and learn from their clients and then third we're looking for people that thrive in team environments we're not the type of firm where we go off and work on our own and then come back and deliver the answer we work in teams we collaborate as teams we coach and we get coached we teach and we get taught and we work together to solve those problems as a team and then on overarching all of those things the analytics the client skills and the team skills is a certain level of humility that every person at Bain has we hire the best and the brightest students that are out there we hire the best talent that we can find in industry and at all types of different programs but it's important that those people come in with the humble attitude that it takes to learn and be successful in a place like Bain & Company but how do you get all of this just from checking out a resume well the resume is one part and a lot of times we will have met people at different events in different marketing opportunities on campus but when we get the resume we look for a couple of things first I'd say we look for intellectual capacity and a lot of times for MBA students that's just looking back at their undergraduate institution it's looking at their major it's looking at their GPA and it's really getting a sense for academically how did they do in the classroom the second thing that we look for is some type of professional maturity and what I mean by that is we're looking for people who've had work experience that have had to get up and sort of go into an office environment or go into a work environment work on a team work with other people solve a challenge and then the third thing is we look for is what I'll say is leadership and really the question we're trying to answer there is can they make it happen have they ever been on the hook for something going according to plan and if they ever been on the hook for adjusting that plan when something goes wrong so for example if you were on campus and you were leading a conference and you were responsible for a panel discussion that's really great and that's a great title and that's a great role the problem is when your speakers don't show up because there was a snowstorm how did you accommodate how did you make sure that things came off according to plan and when you think about what we do professionally we're working for clients we're looking at data and we're doing a lot of different types of things that don't always go according to plan and we're looking for people that have demonstrated the ability to adapt and roll with the punches and still hit the goal and still hit the target and those three things what we can find on the resume and then it leads into the interview process and the other stages of recruiting that allow us to get to know them more and figure out who really is the best candidates and the best fit for what we do do you have any tips on like resume length like one two pages I mean is that not important yeah no for most people the resume tends to be one page and that's usually enough to highlight those three areas both their educational background their professional background and some leadership and extracurricular activities and we can see a lot of what we need to see on that for people who've been working for several years maybe they have a PhD or they're coming to us from industry sometimes they go to two pages but that's typically about as long as we'll see on a resume could you give us a quick overview of our typical consultant recruiting process and I know that's kind of like that it's a long process with a short question but if you could give us quick overview that'd be great so the typical process for recruits tends to be when they get to campus they'll meet us through our big on-campus presentation or on-campus event a lot of times they have classmates that have you interned at Bain or worked at Bain before business school and they'll get a chance to know us in our culture just by meeting their classmates and their peers a lot of MBA program students will meet us even before they get to campus as part of our connect with Bain program and that's just an opportunity for them to learn about the industry and learn about Bain before they get to campus and decide if they even want to pursue that when they get to campus in the fall connect obeying that's the program that operates sometime in the summer time yeah so that happens for students that are going into business schools that we recruit from they have an opportunity in their home city or in the city they're moving to to meet with representatives and people from the local office and just again it's just the chance for them to get to learn about consulting what is consulting what is Bain & Company what are the people like at bain and company and we think it's a great way for them to just educate themselves on all of those things and then when they get to campus they're well informed in thinking about whether or not they want to pursue recruiting in the fall so we do all those marketing events and then they get to campus and they'll get to know us they'll go to an industry presentation maybe they'll hear about our private equity practice our NPS work that we're doing or our gender parity research and then if they choose to recruit with us they'll submit an application and that's a resume oftentimes the cover letter is optional but they can submit a cover letter and then you go through the actual interview process the interviews tend to be about two rounds the first round is two traditional case interviews and there's a lot of resources on our website join bank ahhmm to help them prepare for the interviews in addition to other resources that are out there and then a lot of times the second round interview is in the local office that they're interviewing for or it'll be very soon after the first round on campus and the second rounds are usually about three interviews two or three of them are case interviews sometimes one of the interviews is a resume interview and we'll just talk with you about your resume we'll talk with you about your career experience and what we're looking for there is not just your motivation for a job but your motivation for a job with Bain & Company we want to understand why a career in consulting is the right next step in your career and why Bain and company is the right place to take that step is there particular levels of interview like the written interview or the the case interview are they some of them that are more arduous than others some you have to prepare more for others I mean there's some would you perhaps focus a little bit on that tell us a little bit more about the written interview yes so as I think about the different interviews that we do we tend to do three different types of Bain & Company we do a traditional case interview which is just a conversation like we're having right now the written interview is very similar except in that case what will happen is I'll give you a pack of slides and a question and give you some time to formulate your response and what we find is that some candidates who may be a little bit nervous or a little bit apprehensive in a live dialogue actually do great with the extra time to sit prepare their thoughts and prepare for an interview after they've had some time to really think about this do they come back in with a PowerPoint or do they write stuff down how does that work how do they yeah that's a great question the the pack itself is a set of PowerPoint slides with data it's usually pretty straightforward data and then all we ask them to do is prepare one or two slides handwritten slides with their recommendation on one and their rationale and supporting evidence on the other slide and that is the written case so I'll come into a room there'll be a laptop there with me saying okay here's your information that you need and now formulate your your response from there so how does that yeah actually what we'll do is we'll sit down for a few minutes I'll introduce a business problem on a slide and say you know here is a client here's a problem that they have here are the two or three questions that they'd like for you to answer and make a recommendation and after I'd give you that set up will ask I'll have a little bit of back and forth maybe some clarifying questions and I'll say and by the way we have this additional data available to help you formulate your analysis and your recommendation and then you're on your way we do provide a lot of great resources on join bang comm for recruits to come and see what our traditional case interviews are like what our written case interviews are like there's also a great video on there that includes some but good better and best examples of answers to case interview questions the way we think about the case interview is it's a great way for us to see who has the skills that would help them be successful on the job and it's a great way for us to find the best talent on campus and is there something that that like a recruit can do on their own time to rehearse that like could I if I was coming in I had my interview tomorrow could I grab my friend and sort of and I mean it's a way you can prepare for this you know that you might recommend for that yes so the best ways that I've seen people prepare for case interviews I tie back to some of the classmates I had in business school and what they would do is they would get together every weekend starting a couple months before the interviews and they were just the for them would get together for breakfast they were gonna eat anyway so one would give a case one would receive a case the other two would watch yeah and then they'd switch first two would eat while one gave a case the other received the case and they would break for the day and they would just do that over the course of several weeks heading into the interviews and it worked great all of them got consulting interviews consulting offers and it was a really good experience the takeaway from that though is that it's a marathon not a sprint case interviews aren't the type of thing you can prepare for in one weekend right before interviews it's the type of thing you have to do a little bit over a long period of time ideally out loud with someone what I like to tell people is it's really funny how brilliant things sound up here and how crazy they sound coming out your mouth and you actually have to practice those things coming out of your mouth with a live person to get better at the interviews themselves so grab a friend and go to the diner would be would be the tip that would be great and if they're doing you a favor make sure you buy them breakfast think back to 1996 if you're in a recruit shoes and know what you know now what advice would you give to them for navigating the process and making sure that they're on our radar you know a couple of things I think recruits need to keep in mind when they head into the process first they really have to do their homework you know go to the website go online read about the companies read about the firms and learn what ticks what makes people at the different firms tick and learn what the cultures are like as best you can before you go into the interview process and and know sort of what you're getting into that's the first thing do your homework the second thing is get out and meet people you know come to the recruiting events it's not important that you come to every recruiting event we know your students we know that you're trying to graduate we know that your mission for being there and paying all that tuition money isn't to come to a different event every night but you do need to get out and meet some people and make sure that we get to know you you get to know us again because at the end of the day it really is a two-way connection that has to happen and we have to really like what you bring to the table from a skill standpoint but you also have to like us from the support and the impact that you can have working at a place like Bain & Company and then the third thing is really prepare for your case interviews you know we talk a lot about case prep at Bain we provide a lot of support for people on campus doing case prep you can go visit some of the resources on join bang comm for case prep but at the end of the day the interview really is important and it's important that you've done everything that you can heading into that interview so that when when it's game time you're ready to go can you give an example of a recruit who really impressed you in the process some good some good any good recruiting stories there yeah so I can't share some of the recruiting stories that probably might make us laugh the most but what I would say is that the best recruits come in and it's very clear that they've done a couple of things one they've done their homework they know the difference between Bain & Company and the other firms they may be considering they know the difference between Bain & Company and some of the industry jobs are considering and they really understand what it is that we do and why we're a special place they understand that we're working for some of the top companies in the world we're working with their most senior executives and we're solving their toughest problems and they're excited about that and they understand what's unique about our approach to those where it's not something off the shelf it's not something that's academic it's something that's very practical and it's something that actually makes a difference at the end of the day and they understand that and in their dialogue with us they can articulate why they're excited about that that's the first thing the second thing is that they really have done their case prep they it's clear that they've practiced the case interviews and they've taken this process seriously and then the third thing that I think the best candidates do is they have fun during the process they come in and they like to sit and have a business conversation I realized that they're nervous when they first walk in but those quickly leave the room once the conversation gets started and then it's just two friends having a business conversation the other thing that I would say that a lot of people forget they do all this case prep and they practice this and they read the book that and they meet with their friends and they do all these things they forget all the interviewing 101 skills a good handshake eye contact okay to smile every once in a while all those types of things matter in the interview and after a long day of interviewing those are the things a lot of times it can help you stand out I'm not from the US although I live here now but if I was if I'm from Boston for example and I'm really keen to work overseas is it realistic realistic for me as an American citizen to apply to bein in London is that something that's realistic and is it worth me doing that my cover letter is that something bank and organize we're a global firm Martin and the way we like to think about it is we're outgrowing all of the business school campuses and undergraduate campuses that we recruit at we've been growing close to 15% a year for the last two decades and what that means is to fuel all of that growth we actually need to hire all the best talent that we can find anywhere in the world and so if you're a recruit and you're thinking about working for Bain & Company you should know that we're hiring all the best people that we can find everybody who's talented and should be working at Bain & Company we'll get an offer to work for Bain & Company and what that means is that if you're in the US and you want to work in Europe or you want to work in Asia or if you're in Europe and you want to come to the US all you need to focus on is doing a great job in the interview and making sure that you know what it is you're asking for in terms of knowing the culture at Bain knowing the type of work we do at Bain knowing the type of impact we have at bay and knowing what it takes to be successful at Bain and if you do those things and you get through the interview process the geographic flexibility that you have and that maybe you want to work in Texas or the UK or in Singapore that's not an issue at all we work all that out on the back end every year your team well the team that we both work in recruits for permanent positions and also for internships as well a difference and the stuff we've talked about between between the two as far as recruiting is concerned or is it pretty much the same I mean both of them require case interviews written interviews resumes and stuff like that but any any differences there yeah so there are two ways that people can work with Bain during their summer while they're still at school one is the associate consultant internship program the ACI program and that happens before your graduation year so in most four-year institutions that's before your final year the other one is the summer associate program and that typically for two-year MBA is the summer in between your two years of business school in both cases the interview process is almost identical to the full-time process the only difference is that in your first year of your MBA program you may not know as much about consulting and as much about the industry as some people who have been there for a second yeren who may have summered in the industry but the processes are completely identical what I would say is that in both cases you know we're not really big into made-for-tv moments at Bain what we actually do is we put them on real cases they have real clients they have real work to do they're working on real case teams and hopefully they're having a real impact so we actually view our interns as a great resource for the team and for our clients because they come in and do phenomenal work in ten weeks and again it gives them a great chance to see what Bain and company is about and what it's like to work on a real Bain case team and it gives us a chance to see if they have those problem-solving skills people skills and team skills that I talked about earlier and if that's a great fit then they get you know ideally an offer to return at the end of the summer at the NBA level over 90 percent of our interns get offers to return full-time and an even higher percentage of those interns accept that offer and join us when they graduate so from my perspective is the global head of consultant recruiting the intern program is a tremendous source of talent every intern that comes into Bain & Company we do everything we can to get them a full time offer at the end of their summer great well Kay thank you so much it's been a pleasure thanks Martin good discussion

Channel: Bain & Company Careers

Views: 85,853

Rating: 4.9446292 out of 5

Keywords: consulting, MBB, Interview, advice

Id: Iufbrwwh6Hk

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2019