Bain & Company reviews

4.4

89% would recommend to a friend

(8,311 total reviews)
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Christophe De Vusser

92% approve of CEO

77% positive business outlook

Bain & Company has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 8,311 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Bain & Company employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management & Beratung industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
1.0
Dec 28, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. Meager office perks such as free food. 2. Can't remember anything else

Cons

This is the only section that defines how working at BCC is like. The company has the worst kind of ethics related procedure. Nothing is followed according to the ethics provided in the charter but is dependent on the whims and fancies of the group manager and team manager. This entity lures people from the market on the behest of it's respectable parent organization - Bain and company, but it's nothing close to it. I will break it down to discuss the different paradigms. 1. Culture The entity is run by a cartel of group managers and their flatterer(team managers) who do things according to their will without any check. People at senior level are mostly not qualified enough to answer queries on the function they are handling. If they find out that you know more than them, get ready for an egoistic clash and a round of denigration on most of the matters. If you are a lateral, you are in for a ride. I think this is the only company that very strongly differentiates it's hire as laterals or home growns - with most of the benefits going to the homegrowns since they have grown by agreeing to all fancies of the management. They have reviews and analysis by laterals vs homegrowns which definitely all the time makes the laterals feel like an outcast. The easy way to success in the organization boils down to being a bootlicker of the senior management, have no views of your own and never challenge them in terms of knowledge - even though if you know more. If you do the above, you are sure to go places and earn promotion otherwise you might end up in a spot where they continuously find ways to mentally harass you. No respect for a work life balance and I was amazed to see that senior people here most of the times don't have any work and are just passing time in the company - getting complacent with their own inability. The senior management does not have industry knowledge and cannot groom you accordingly- chances are you would know more than them, only exception being if you want to be a master politician and harasser of people. Concerns to the HR are never heard since every news goes out to the senior management who then dictate accordingly. 2. Work In bold letters - This is not a strategy firm. It has all that of tactical work that no one in the industry wants to do and hence is sent to this great place. Working on shards of the complete glass, you never know what the project is talking about. If you have worked in the industry, you are coming to a place that will add aryabhata's zero to your resume. It would get so difficult to define this work outside and you would as well be in a state of demotion - a confidence shattering experience. All manual activities that the bain teams don't want to do are sent for disposal at this place which is definitely not a great motivation. The senior management is even scared to add new avenues as these things don't fall under their comfort level and it's been ages since they have actually worked up on something that would value add or is more relevant in the industry in current times. 3. People Be a flatterer and you rise without any work as well. Be an efficient worker merely keep yourself alive under the scrutiny of the big bosses. The young freshers are quite good and smart, can't say the same about the senior management since they run it more like a shop or their own property. These people live in their own world and deem most of the laterals as culturally unfit - coming from the people who have stayed their entire life here and saying it to people who have actually done meaningful work globally - that's how irony looks.

4.0
Oct 16, 2018

Amazing place to work!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Interesting and challenging work with great exposure to senior clients - Fun and supportive culture, with strong focus on coaching and mentorship - Wide range of opportunities within the company (travel, transfers etc.)

Cons

- Hours and travel can make finding a work-life balance challenging

1.0
Feb 17, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good reasons are 1) the people -- consulting attracts the best / brightest students, and Bain is an awesome firm in that regards. 2) The support that the junior Bainies give. Most people there Consultant and below (that's the level immediately post-MBA) are good people and support each other however possible. 3) Work-life balance -- obviously consulting stinks but at least Bain tried (weekly health checks, meetings on how to make life better).

Cons

1) Incredible sketchiness. The partners / managers are more interested in lining their own pockets with money than providing useful advice -- case in point is that the managers / partners are much more concerned with extending cases (calling 'rolling' in consulting lingo) than actually providing good advice 2) Cult-like intensity. The excellent reputation is proactively managed, such that I wouldn't be surprised if this point is followed by tons of comments that support Bain and try to paint me as a bad apple (for the record I wasn't). There's also a strong culture of following, simply because there's so much direct feedback. Bain did not appreciate diversity whatsoever -- any divergent thoughts / actions were quickly fixed, and the vast majority of leaders ended up leaving the organization as quickly as they could. 3) Incredibly political. Everything in Bain, including your feedback review, is group driven -- if even one senior partner takes a stand for or against you, it either jump start or completely destroy your career (I have seen it both ways). Most people join consulting because they're risk averse and that only gets worse as people get promoted -- as a result everyone in the higher ranks just tries to blend into the crowd and not rock the boat. 4) Limited skills learned. A lot was said to me about how the skills I learned would be helpful later, which is completely false. At Bain (and other consulting firms), we perfect our analysis / presentation skills -- but to be perfectly honest, unless you're already great at those, you're not getting hired in the first place (and you're certainly smart enough to do whatever you want to begin with). I'm not sure the extra 10-20% of refining your thought process will make any substantial difference. Bain does not teach leadership or implementation in any way, shape, or form -- and the risk aversion you learn at Bain will get in the way of whatever you will do later. At best, I believe it's a wash. In summary I would not spend a year or two here, and I would certainly advise against staying longer than that and trying to make partner. And by the time you make partner, the industry itself will be in decline and your margins (and take-home salary) will be far lower than what they are now. And besides, too many things can go wrong in the meantime -- and it's not like a manager is really qualified to do anything in the workforce other than stay in a strategy role in a large corporate. If you want to stay in strategy then by all means... but for the other 99% of us, just do what you want to as soon as you can.

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