What It’s Like To Intern At Bain & Co.

Anna Reighart was a summer intern at Bain

Anna Reighart was a summer intern at Bain

Anna Reighart is an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, but this summer, she lived in a college dorm in New York City. In fact, she and her roommates are all U Penn students who temporarily relocated for their summer internships.

Reighart had an associate consultant internship at the Bain & Co. New York office. She’s a rising senior and economics major at Wharton, specifically studying management and finance, and says her initial interest was sparked by her father, who owns a small family business.

Even though she wasn’t sure where her career would end up in the long term, she says she felt like studying business was a way to explore a wide variety of potential careers – particularly through consulting. Her experience with Bain bore this hunch out.

Landing the Internship

Bain initially caught Reighart’s eye during information sessions at Wharton, where she could see that the company went out of its way to create a supportive environment for interns. She was also attracted to the training she would receive in both hard and soft skills – from analyzing data to communicating with clients. And of course, she wanted to enhance her future career potential and hoped Bain would expose her to influential people and different industries that she might someday work in as a consultant.

The interview process had two rounds. The first involved two 30-minute interviews, and the second had two 45-minute interviews. All of the interviews took place within the same week. Reighart said she prepared by reflecting on her past experiences.

“I knew those questions were coming – things like, tell me about a time when you led a team, or tell me about a time when you made a change in an organization. I purposefully prepared for that by thinking back on various leadership experiences to make sure I could speak eloquently about the impact that I had.”

A Typical Day At The Office:

Reighart said that while each day was different in terms of what she did, they all followed a fairly similar structure.

“I’d get in around 9 a.m. and usually have breakfast in the office. I’d get coffee right when I got there and then sit down to check emails and my calendar to get organized for the day. Usually by 9:15 I’d be ready to get started,” she says.

This summer Reighart’s work dealt with competitor analysis – researching competitors and analyzing data. She would work on this for several hours in the morning, frequently checking in with her supervisor if she had any questions.

“His desk wasn’t far from mine, so I could just pop over and ask him questions or shoot him an email if anything came up,” she recalls.

She’d break for lunch between noon and 1 p.m. and said that this was a highlight, since interns would often eat together and participate in what they called experience sharing. “We were all on different cases, working on totally different projects, so it was cool to hear what the other interns were doing,” she says.

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