Bain: possibility of office transfer before starting

Hi there,

Congratulations on your offer. Below are some comments based on my own experiences. This may vary depending on company size and management structure of the specific firm but hopefully gives you some directional guidance

• Consulting firms usually have different management teams with own P&Ls that are in charge of their various regions/geographies - recruiting is typically done at these regional or often even country levels
• You got your return offer in China so it would typically not be that difficult to change your office location within China (assuming these offices are under the purview of the same managment/HR team that gave you the offer)
• If you wanted to change the offer to North America for your full-time start, however, this is a different story and pretty much a long shot
• There may be exceptions of course depending on how closely connected individual partners between these offices are, but generally speaking, each region (or office) is responsible for their own recruiting (incl. budget, entry level requirements, desired candidate profiles, working permits) so that offers are not just interchangeable
• An international transfer is much easier once you have been with the firm for a while (e.g. 2 years) and you can position yourself as a consultant with the kind of skill set that is demanded at your desired office location
• Another factor to consider when thinking about office locations is that there might be different focus areas at play that are prevalent in different offices/regions - some might be selling a lot of due diligence work to PE firms while others could be focused on projects in the financial services or healthcare sectors, etc - so it also depends on what you are interested in

If you want to bring it up with the company, you should first start with your HR contact who sent you the offer.

Best of luck

Hi there,

Congratulations on the Bain offer! In terms of your question:

Q: I'd like to know if it is possible for a first-year Associate Consultant to transfer office at Bain before starting. If possible, who should I talk to? 

It is usually difficult to transfer before you start - normally you need to have some seniority to move between offices.

If you want to ask now, you should do so by contacting HR of the office that extended the offer.

If they say no or you are willing to wait a bit, you could try to move once got some seniority - the likelihood will then be higher.

To maximize your chances you should ideally:

• Have one or more partners in your target office favoring the transfer
• Have one or more partners in your home office favoring the transfer
• Have a strong performance
• Have or be able to get working rights in your target office

It might be easier to try to target a project in the new office while you are based in your current one, create relationships and then do the full transfer. However, that also depends on the office flexibility.

Good luck!

Francesco

Talk to HR! They want to do the most that they can to get you into the role, so if you have good reasons for wanting to transfer, which you do, they’ll do their best to make that work. Good luck! 

Hi there,

I really don't like telling people things are impossible (in reality, in life we never know), but this is a highly improbable scenario. Unfortunately, this isn't something they generally allow (internship offer to new country switch), and that's especially true moving to the US as opposed to away from.

Give it a try (speak to HR and plead your case), but just try not to get your hopes up too much.

Hi there,

Given that you already went through the entire process targeting one office, it's hard at this stage to request starting in another office. This should have been flagged from the start or can be requested at a more senior tenure.

My advice is to build a strong case before requesting the transfer and for that you will need to:

1- Keep a strong performance (try to get very strong ratings as the other office will screen those when taking a decision)

2- Grow your network in the target office especially on the senior level. Ideally, you would work with some of the partners there on part time projects or proposals. 

3- Balance the pull and the push (you should have enough supporters there willing to take you and enough supporters in your current office helping your case)

Mario