Careers at Bain & Company
Bain & Company consulting roles are highly sought after and extremely competitive, with only a small percentage of those applying receiving an offer.
After completing the first stage of the application process, successful candidates are tasked with completing a number of online tests, which are set out in this article alongside practice tests.
A global management consultant firm with offices in 37 countries, Bain & Company offers a variety of career opportunities, for both graduates and professionals.
Bain & Company was one of the first consulting firms to move beyond only making MBA hires from business schools, by recruiting consultants with a Bachelor’s degree.
Graduates can apply for either an associate consultant role or associate consultant internship.
MBAs or advanced degree candidates can apply for summer associate positions or can make a consultant application.
Roles at Bain & Company are not limited to consultancy. Candidates can apply for roles in Bain’s Advanced Analytics Group (AAG) where teams use data to drive insights and action. Roles including research, engineering as well as marketing and data scientists.
Product Designer, Design Researcher, Software Engineer or Innovation Experts are all roles available in the Advanced Digital & Product Team (ADAPT@Bain®).
Bain also offers legal, finance, administrative, marketing, technology and HR roles in Business Services.
Bain & Company Application Process
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1
Online application
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2
Phone interview
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3
Psychometric tests
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4
Experience interview
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5
Case interview
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6
Written case interview
All Bain applications start the same way: with the online submission of your CV. For consulting roles, a small percentage of applicants are then invited to an HR screening interview.
Successful candidates are then invited to take a series of online tests run by Sova, a leading provider of online aptitude tests. These can include a personality test, numerical test, verbal test or logic test.
Candidates who score well on the online tests are then invited to a series of further interviews, which depending on office location and role applied for may be carried out in person or via an online platform such as Zoom.
Online application
As one of the most sought after consulting firms, your application to Bain & Company must stand out from the thousands of initial applications. The first stage is to submit your CV, setting out educational and background information, relevant work experience and test scores.
This is uploaded as a Word doc or PDF.
HR screening phone interview
The HR screening interview is most likely to be conducted virtually using an online platform such as Spark Hire.
You will be sent a video asking a series of questions. You’ll then have a brief thinking period and must record a video of your answers, which will be reviewed by the recruiting team at Bain & Company.
Bain Aptitude Tests
The online tests that Bain asks candidates to complete is designed to whittle down the number of candidates. You must pass these tests to continue to the next part of the application process for a consultant role – which may include the experience interview, case interview and/or written case interview.
You may encounter tests such as personality, numerical and analytical reasoning. You may also be asked to take an abstract reasoning test.
Bain personality test
There are no right and wrong answers, so you will need to pick the answer which best represents you from a selection of positive statements (eg "I naturally lead within a group"), ranking them from ‘most likely’ or ‘most like me’ to ‘least likely’ or ‘least like me’.
Read more about how personality tests work.
Bain numerical reasoning test
Using basic arithmetic and math skills, you will need to answer around 25 questions in 20 minutes. The data is likely to be in a graph or table form and you will need to work quickly.
These tests are similar to a financial reasoning test and you should practice ahead of time, so that you are familiar with the types of questions you may be asked.
Bain analytical reasoning test
Analytical reasoning tests are designed to assess skills that include logical and critical thinking, analysis and problem-solving.
Bain logical reasoning test
This test comprises questions relating to sequences of shapes and patterns. In each question there will be a missing step and you will be provided with a number of answers to choose from. These are designed to test your logical reasoning as well analytical skills.
