The Bain & Company internship is a great opportunity for aspiring management consultants like yourself to enter the world of consulting.
Bain tops the ranks of both Glassdoor and Vault 50 and has been selected by its employees as the Best Place to Work. Having a Bain internship on your CV is a big plus. Only 1% of applicants are hired as interns, making a Bain internship an elite achievement.
Read on to learn how you can secure yourself an internship with Bain & Company.
I’m going to focus on:
- An overview of the Bain Internship Program
- What you will do as a Bain intern
- Is Bain Internship worth it?
- What types of internships Bain offers
- How to qualify for an internship
About the Bain Internship Programme
Interns are referred to as Associate Consultant Interns (ACI) or Summer Associate Interns (SAI) depending on their level of academia.
Bain teaches business strategy by placing candidates within teams managed by associates. In other words, interns work on real-life contracts and engage with clients from day one.
Bain internships are generally eight to twelve weeks in duration and typically run between March and June of every year.
What Will I be Doing as a Bain Intern?
The Bain internship exposes candidates to a broad view of the consulting industry. Interns are initiated into the consulting world through a week of intensive training led by consultants.
After the first week of training is complete, each intern is given an active case to work on. Interns normally work alongside more experienced Associate Consultants in a small team of three to five consultants.
Interns are granted a high level of responsibility from day one. As an intern, you could expect to take charge of a particular aspect of the project.
It is important to consider that most of Bain’s clients are Fortune 500 companies, making the exposure a competitive yet gainful experience.
Interns also interview and interact with clients and their stakeholders.
This is a very important aspect as interview outcomes are used to inform the strategy applied by more senior consultants.
Other duties expected of an Associate Consultant Intern include finding, gathering, and interpreting data and its sources.
As an intern, you’ll prepare your findings and present these findings to the case team members. Should the seniors in the team be satisfied, the findings are then presented to the client and their stakeholders.
Is a Bain Internship Worth It?
Interns at Bain earn between $17,300 to $32,000 per internship. At the undergraduate level, interns earn about $6,900 per month, averaging a ten-month period with earnings of $17,250 upon completing the internship.
At the MBA level, interns earn about $7,300 per month, averaging a ten-month period with earnings of $18,250 upon completing the internship.
This is a very competitive salary range for an intern across all industries.
Associate Consultant Interns are offered a full-time role as Associate Consultants should they meet performance expectations during their internship.
The internship is treated as a live test against which your abilities are tested.
Candidates enjoy an opportunity to work in a multi-dimensional and international work environment. Among the Bain team in the Unites States alone, almost 20% of consultants are from another country.
Besides its industry ranking, Bain has also topped the list as the Best Place to Work as per its employees.
Bain also has a remarkable track record as one of the top three management consultancies in the world which will make being selected for an internship here make you a stand-out choice of candidate to employers.
What Different Internships does Bain offer?
Bain offers three distinct internships:
- The regular Bain internship is aimed at undergraduates up until Honours’ level students. This is also known as the Associate Consultant Internship (ACI).
- The regular Bain MBA internship is aimed at Master’s level interns. This is also known as the Summer Associate Internship.
- The Bain CEMS International Internship is open to Master’s level candidates.
The regular Bain internship generally takes place in the same office where a candidate would start on a full-time basis should they successfully complete the internship and get hired.
However, the CEMS internship takes place in a country other than where the candidate is based or of which they are a national. Upon applying, candidates get to select their global office of choice.
How Do I Qualify for an Internship at Bain?
Bain is interested in hiring interns at all levels of academic study after having completed at least one year of tertiary education.
The MBA and other advanced degree candidates are hired on a distinct intern program as a higher level of skill and matching salary sets them apart from undergraduate to Honours level students.
As such, qualifying for either is generally based on academic merit and years of study.
Candidates with business school exposure are preferred, especially those who come from top internationally ranked business schools. Fluency in English is also preferred.
It is important to point out that only 1% of applicants actually land an internship at Bain, making this a highly competitive application process.
How do I Prepare for an Internship at Bain?
It is important to network, develop skills and gain qualifications, and write a great CV and cover letter. Candidates must also prepare for the Bain Potential Test, Fit Interview, and Case Interview. The test trio.
How do I apply to Intern at Bain?
Bain hosts recruitment events at university campuses all over the world. More recently, Bain has also hosted a number of online events and digital recruitment drives.
Applicants need to prepare a CV, detailed educational background information, detailed work experience, and academic results regardless of the office to which they intend to apply.
Once a preferred office is selected in the application, some offices may have additional requirements which they will make candidates aware of in the application.
At present, applications are open to fourteen (14) offices based in Europe and candidates are expected to list three options in order of preference.
Spots are filled on an as-needed basis outside of Bain’s annual intake of interns around March each year. The application deadline for an internship at Bain is normally in late November of each year.
Applicants are advised of their application status by mid-December of every year.
