Join any Bain office in the world, but not Milan office - Case Team Leader Bain & Company Employee Review

2.0
24 Jul 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Bain & Company surely is a top consulting firm in Italy along with McKinsey (BCG is 1/3 of Bain/McK size). Paycheck is extremely competitive when referring to Italy only (where there's shortage of finance job). Bain & Company Milan provides a very diverse work environment as you could be engaged on projects on various industries - e.g. in the last 2 years I worked in the fashion, automotive, consumer goods, banking and manufacturing industries. Bain's Milan human capital is top of the notch as people share over the top degrees (from Italian schools only!) and competence is pretty high. Company has 2 branches (Milan & Rome)

Cons

Bain & Company Milan is not part of Bain & Company network (there's just a revenue sharing agreement in exchange for the brand) - corporate culture is completely different at the point that when participating in global corporate training you feel being part of a different company. Managers and partners do not have respect for personal committments and a 80+ hours workweek might be usual as well as you might have to answer a partner's call on Sunday night. Travelling is generally limited to Italy's border but might be stressful as you're off 5 days on the week (vs. 4 in anglo saxon countries). The Admin staff is well trained to cut expenses and the overall managing of non core office duties is time consuming and very bureaucratic. Library service is pretty inefficient. The way work is organized and structured at Bain Milan is miles away from other offices.

Explore other reviews about Bain & Company

5.0
10 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture, wonderful mentorship, meritocracy

Cons

Work life balance can be challenging at times

5.0
5 Oct 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Welcome to Bain. I'm going to give you a problem that neither the CEO nor his entire management team could solve. And I'm probably going to give you lots of different opinions and imperfect data sources. And then I'll ask you to focus in on where the most value is and convince all those people with different opinions that you're right. But don't worry, I'm also going to give you a Bain team. Those associates and consultants are going to be tenacious in coming up with creative approaches. Those managers and partners are going to knock down barriers for you, connect you where you need to be connected, guide, support, direct and re-direct you. The office support staff is going to fix your computer after you spilled coffee on it for the third time, find you the unfindable data source, and smile and hand you a baked good after you ask for help re-doing dozens of slides. You are empowered and accountable but you are not alone. And the best part is you can't fail. Because after all, what all those people are reinforcing is that a Bainie never lets another Bainie fail.

Cons

Here's how you know you've made it at Bain. The reward for doing a good job is getting a bigger, tougher problem next time. Meaning, you are always solving the easiest problem you will ever solve again. This takes a lot of resilience and active managing of self-expectations to remember that you are not actually getting worse, the problems are just getting harder. So my advice is to remember that. And then take a second to realize that it would be a lot less fun if the reverse were true. And isn't that precisely why you wanted this job in the first place anyway? It sure was for me.

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Bain & Company Response
9y
You have captured the essence of what it means to work here! Thanks for sharing your experience.
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