Great place to work but don't bother recruiting for a consulting position with the Chicago office if you are not white - Anonymous employee Bain & Company Employee Review

3.0
Oct 3, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

*less travel on average compared to other top consulting firms. Focus on travel only as needed. Get to spend a lot of time in the office with teammates and colleagues. *thought provoking work and generally great teams and clients *exit opportunities are great and if you just want a break, easy to take a sabbatical or transfer for a 6 month period to another office for a new experience

Cons

*Only a handful of non-white candidates end up getting offers and coming here. Hypocritical that even though "diversity" is mentioned all the time but when it comes down to the final decision, other ethnicities lose out at this office. Seen many less qualified individuals given opportunities over ethnic minorities. Yes, if you visit the office, there is no diversity.

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5.0
Jun 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture, amazing people, and a place to learn and grow

Cons

Long hours and high stress environment

5.0
Oct 5, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Welcome to Bain. I'm going to give you a problem that neither the CEO nor his entire management team could solve. And I'm probably going to give you lots of different opinions and imperfect data sources. And then I'll ask you to focus in on where the most value is and convince all those people with different opinions that you're right. But don't worry, I'm also going to give you a Bain team. Those associates and consultants are going to be tenacious in coming up with creative approaches. Those managers and partners are going to knock down barriers for you, connect you where you need to be connected, guide, support, direct and re-direct you. The office support staff is going to fix your computer after you spilled coffee on it for the third time, find you the unfindable data source, and smile and hand you a baked good after you ask for help re-doing dozens of slides. You are empowered and accountable but you are not alone. And the best part is you can't fail. Because after all, what all those people are reinforcing is that a Bainie never lets another Bainie fail.

Cons

Here's how you know you've made it at Bain. The reward for doing a good job is getting a bigger, tougher problem next time. Meaning, you are always solving the easiest problem you will ever solve again. This takes a lot of resilience and active managing of self-expectations to remember that you are not actually getting worse, the problems are just getting harder. So my advice is to remember that. And then take a second to realize that it would be a lot less fun if the reverse were true. And isn't that precisely why you wanted this job in the first place anyway? It sure was for me.

790
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Bain & Company Response
9y
You have captured the essence of what it means to work here! Thanks for sharing your experience.
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