Meet Bain & Company’s MBA Class Of 2022

ANSWER FIRST

The Class of 2022 has its own advice for succeeding in your first year at Bain. For Malachi W. Randolph, that starts with resisting the temptation to be perfect and focusing on what you can control. “A partner once told me: “When problem solving, it is better to be specifically wrong than generally right.” That has helped me hold space for early mistake-making and get to faster answers.”

To find the best answers, Cecilia Rios Murrieta would urge future consultants to embrace different perspectives. In other words, to borrow a cliché, ‘Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.’ “Many times, we tend to see things from our own POV and focus on just what matters most to us,” Rios Murrieta explains. “But if we can learn to understand what is behind other people’s perspective, we can expand our capacity to reach the best solution to a problem. I think this is the basis of teamwork, coming together from different perspectives and experiences to come up with the best possible results.”

When it comes to casing, Bilal Ajram advises applicants to remember Bain’s “Answer First” approach to problem-solving: hypothesizing an answer and identifying resources to make it a reality – a strategy that quickly reveals whether the answer is feasible or can produce the necessary results. By the same token, Dubem Mbeledogu believes curiosity is the key to a successful case interview.

“It’s difficult to have someone there watching you do it, but it’s meant to feel no different than solving a puzzle with your friends. If you perceive the case interviews that way, you may be more inclined to think of interesting, unique solutions with genuine enthusiasm, which is the way that Bainies typically work on a real case.”

HOW MANY CASES ARE ENOUGH?

For many aspiring consultants, the big question is this: How many cases do I need to complete to be ready for the interview? Bain conducted a study on this topic that was released internally this month. The firm surveyed applicants who interviewed for summer internships, asking how many cases they completed (in buckets ranging from 0-10 to over 100). From there, Keith Bevans notes, Bain cross-referenced the totals against whether or not they received an offer.

The result?

“It’s not a straight line, but once you get to 30 or 40 cases, the odds aren’t significantly better once you go above that on the chart,” Bevans tells P&Q. “The data would say that once you get beyond 30-40 cases, you’ve probably done enough. You’re not increasing your odds by doing more cases. And we saw some people who did over 100 practice cases! This applies whether they practice cases with Bain, classmates, online, by themselves, or other companies.”

To reach the 30-40 threshold, Bevans suggests that MBAs complete 2-3 cases per week starting when they arrive on campus in September, This approach will get them to 40 cases over a 15-week semester, he says. That doesn’t mean MBAs have to read and analyze every case. Bevans points to his own experience at Harvard Business, where four men in his section – all military veterans – would gather every Saturday for breakfast to prepare for case interviews.

“One guy would give the case and the other would receive the case while the other two ate breakfast and watched. Then they would switch and the first two would eat while the other two gave and received their cases. Then they would break and meet again the following Saturday. They did that the whole semester and in January, all four got summer associate offers to work in the Big Three consulting firms. That’s all it takes. It is doing it out loud, doing it with someone else, and doing it consistently. They all got what they needed without doing a case every day or 20 during the holidays. They basically did one every other week. Finding that core group to prepare with can be very fruitful.”

A CLASS WITH BIG UPSIDE

For the Class of 2022, case interviews have passed and the real work has begun. And Bevans is keeping close tabs on the “Pandemic Class” – a group he has come to admire. They started business school when it was often taught virtual, Bevans notes, building relationships over Zoom long before they’d even met their classmates in person. They became experts in a remote world, even taking classes during odd hours to accommodate classmates stuck in their home countries. Many times, their classes were smaller and they couldn’t enjoy many of the traditions that past classes took for granted. Despite this, they persevered. Now, Bevans says, you have a set of consultants who can accustomed to quickly adapting and working online. This experience, he adds, gives the Class of 2022 a huge advantage.

“People who thrive at Bain are the ones who can see the positives in any situation. That’s your Class of 2022! They said, ‘Well, COVID stinks, but I am going to make the best of this and have fun anyway.’ They were already tech savvy in many ways. Business school made them more social and develop a set of social norms in an online environment.  That translates into the experience of building those deep connections with people through technology. It is a useful skill to have.”

Editor’s Note: Click on the links below for in-depth profiles of Bain MBA hires from the Class of 2022. 

Bain Consultant	Bain Office	Hometown	MBA Program
Bilal Ajram	Chicago	Cedar Rapids, IA	Northwestern University (Kellogg)
Yasmina Atallah	Dubai	Ghedres, Lebanon	HEC Paris
Audrey Aw	Singapore	Singapore	Cambridge Judge Business School
Mathilda Deng	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	Sichuan, China	INSEAD
Sasha Foo	San Francisco	San Jose, CA	University of Michigan (Ross)
Maddison Jacka	Sydney, Australia	Clare, South Australia	Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales
Dubem Mbeledogu	San Francisco	Evansville, IN	MIT (Sloan)
Malachi W. Randolph	Chicago	Goshen, IN	University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)
Cecilia Rios Murrieta	Dallas	Mexico City, Mexico	University of Virginia (Darden)
Piers Ward	Oslo, Norway	Farnham, UK	HEC Paris
Bob Winslow	London	Kirkwhelpington, UK	Cambridge Judge Business School

DON’T MISS:

TOP 50 CONSULTING FIRMS TO WORK FOR IN 2023

WHY BAIN NOW RANKS AS THE WORLD’s TOP CONSULTING FIRM