Bain&Company Company Reviews

Cons

Slow: I have never come across a more risk averse and slow moving organization; making a relatively minor decisions (eg hiring plan for a single practice) requires 100s of slides with analysis, dozens of pre-wire conversations, and consensus across several large committees. To add to that, everyone at SM or above has an EA, which slows down simple things like scheduling meetings enormously — forget dropping a calendar invite based on seeing other folks schedules, and lean into 10+emails back and forth to figure out when everyone can match (don’t worry, it will be at least 3 weeks from now) Political: There is basically no top down decision making at Bain; everything requires consensus which means that the people who are successful in professional functions are those that can navigate politics, not the ones that can get anything done. Overall, Bain is very clearly an org that has (rightly) prioritized its client facing teams in its operating model, culture, and rewards. If you are in a global function (ie not client facing) though, you feel superfluous to the mission, much lower priority, and I think you lose what makes Bain a good place to work. That’s ok for a while given good pay and work life balance, but it is not very rewarding and has been a very frustrating experience for me.