Experienced hire final round for Bain AC North America

Question

I have completed my final round with Bain for an AC role as an experienced hire and contrary to what I was expecting, there was not a single behavioral/personal fit component to either interview rounds and I never spoke with any partners – only managers and senior managers. In other words, there were basically four cases and that was it; now I'm waiting on the final result.

This is apparently not common at all. What could this mean?

Answer 1

Hi there,

Bain actually started to have interviews without fit in some offices, so that’s not that uncommon.

Not having interviews with principals/partners is indeed uncommon, in particular for experienced hires. However, I would not read something into it. Most likely, it was just due to the lack of availability of the partners.

Good luck!

Francesco

Answer 2

Hi there,

What it means is that this is exactly why I'm always preaching “don't expect anything” :)

The best preparation is to be prepared for anything and everything, not have a set view of what will happen.

In your situation, don't worry, this doesn't “mean” anything other than that's the format they opted for. If you performed well you should have an offer.

Fingers crossed for you!

Answer 3

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on passing both interview rounds with Bain!

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

Generally speaking, both facts are pretty uncommon if not irregular yet it proves the saying to expect anything.
First, Bain interviewers are still obliged to thoroughly assess a candidate's abilities based on a personal fit and a case study part. This accounts across all offices, even if there might be additional interview formats in selected offices (e.g. written case study interviews in some Asian countries).
Second, the final round interviews are normally held by partners in order to have the “approval” of the management for the hire. While this might be more tradition than requirement, it is still common.

In case you want a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare you upcoming career entry at Bain, please feel free to contact me directly.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

Answer 4

It only means partners were not available during your interview dates. Which is odd, you should have at least one partner interviewing you.

Regarding PEI, I rarely asked those. I would ask on people's motivations, and discuss a bit their resume, and would assess most of the behavior during the case itself.

Bain is actually cutting on the experience part on their interviews. Usually only on the first round, but looks like they did it on both rounds.