Bain Blends Work, Fun

BOSTON--What in the greater Boston area has a huge library, a full-service cafeteria and spacious suites filled with 20-something hipsters and lots of fun toys?

If you guessed Harvard, you're close. But wrong.

At Bain & Company, a strategy consulting firm headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, workers have many of the comforts of college, but are paid to do the thinking.

Bain's Copley Place office, located several floors above the mall by the same name, is at once both elegant and open. Associate consultants, just a few years out of college, work in "bays," groups of large cubicles, located in the same hallway as the glass-walled offices of managers, partners and even the CEO.

"Bain especially, and consulting in general, has a very relaxed atmosphere," says Dan M. Burns, an associate consultant and 1997 graduate of Amherst College.

Another similarity to college life is that, according to Burns, there are few routine days, or even weeks, in the life of a consultant.

"One of the really great things about this job is that there are really no typical days," he says. "It makes it easy to get out of bed each day and go to work."

Consulting work, Burns says, is better looked at in terms of specific cases.

At Bain, each associate consultant is a member of two case teams. At some other consulting firms, he says, each consultant works on only one case at a time.

Each case team is made up of three to six people from different levels of the organization. Each team is responsible for advising clients--who range from broadcast television networks, to financial services companies, to candy manufacturers--on strategic issues ranging from organizational change to marketing strategy to purchasing.

"With so many variations, even no case is really typical," Burns says.

Cases begin, he says, when a partner sells a client on a project with the firm.

"Bain then forms a team, generally from one office, consisting of a partner, managers, consultants--with graduate business degrees--and associate consultants," Burns says.

The first few weeks of a case are spent becoming an expert on the firm and its industry.

Using Bain's extensive library and any means possible, says Burns, he and other team members learn as much as possible about a firm, its market and its competitors.

Once the team has an idea of how a business works, rather than analyzing every possible solution to a problem, Burns says, the team comes up with a few likely solutions that it investigates further.

"Bain believes in an answer-first approach," Burns says. "It sounds confusing--how do you know the answer before you've done the work--but it's very hypothesis-driven."

According to Burns, the many different tools he has used in researching these solutions have paid off.

In one case, Burns looked at why one portion of a client's business--its cookies--were losing money and market share.

"We know that for a competitor to make money on a product, it must be investing in it, and that money must be coming from somewhere else," Burns says.

After identifying the competitor's moneymaking product, Burns did everything up to and including analyzing its packaging costs.

In the end, Burns says his team was able to advise its client which brand it must strengthen in order to cut off its competitor's money flow at the source.

"Walking down the aisle in the supermarket, I can still see the changes in packaging that I was part of," Burns says.

"Our work only means something if our clients change," he adds.

Burns, who has worked on eight cases in his two years consulting, says that the experience has also benefited him personally.

"One of the neat things about the job is that it gives you great general management skills," he says.

Training, he adds, is one reason recent college graduates crave offers from Bain and other consulting firms. They receive training in general strategy and management that is applicable outside the consulting world--often where associates eventual career destinations lie.

"They don't teach you what to think, they teach you how to think," Bruns says. "They teach you how to structure your projects--that's why this experience is so valuable for anything else."

Immediately upon starting with Bain, new hires are taken off-site for a two-week intensive training session, which is followed by two months of on-the-job training.

Even on case teams, the process continues, as each member of the team is giving responsibility for a part of the project.

At Bain, associate consultants are paired to with regular consultants on their first projects.

"When you start, you're not thrown right into the fire," Burns says. "But once you've been here for a while, that consultant in the middle goes away and you're working directly with the manager."

For the investment it makes in associate training, Bain and other firms typically expect a two-year--though non-binding--commitment.

At some point after that, according to Burns, associate consultants may be offered the chance to continue their education with reimbursement from the firm, as long as the consultant commits to two years at the firm after graduation.

Most associate consultants pursue a master's degree in business administration, but some seek other degrees.

"For instance, a law degree helps you become a better thinker," Burns says. "The greatest quality a consultant can have is an active mind that isn't afraid to challenge ideas that everyone accepts as true."

Others may consider entering industry, which is one possibility for Burns, who says he has always been interested in working for a professional sports league or team.

"Entering straight out of college, I may have gotten a job in the ticket office, but with this [consulting] experience, I'm looking at mid-level management positions at the least," Burns says.

As for his current job, Burns says that as enjoyable as it is, it is hard work.

"People are very serious about their work," he says. "We have a play-hard, work-hard philosophy."

Burns says that associate consultants can expect to work 55 to 60 hours weekly, with one day of travel.

Burns stresses that these figures are averages.

"Some weeks, if I need to see a client, I'll go down to New York two or three days, but many weeks I don't leave Boston at all," Burns says.

"A few weeks, I've worked less than f40 hours and a few times over 80. I've never worked a 90-hour week," he says.

"All that matters is that I get my job done when it needs to be. If I don't have anything to do some afternoon, my boss would get mad at me if I didn't go home," Burns adds.

"Often, if I don't have a meeting scheduled, I'll go to the gym at three or four in the afternoon and just stay a little later...Some people with families take their work home to spend more time with their kids," he says.

Burns says that he did not apply for any investment banking jobs during his senior year. When they attend information sessions and recruiting interviews, students will be able to tell which type of work is right for them.

"When you find something out about consulting or about investment banking in your senior year of college, you generally find that you fit into one or the other," he says.