I interviewed for the Knowledge Specialist role. The entire process took about a month.
Day 1: Call for interview
Day 6:
Round 1: Excel test: fairly simple, won’t take more than 10-15 mins.
Round 2: PPT based case study, a graph with multiple data points and one had to make inferences.
Round 3: PPT based case study, where one has to made the case summary. Slightly time consuming. Total time provided for the Excel and Case studies was 1 hour, however most of the people took about 75-90 mins.
Round 4: In-person interview, probably with a peer. Questions related to experience, Why this role?/Why Bain?/Guesstimate: estimate the revenue of a restaurant/Tell me about yourself/what do you understand of the role etc. Lasted about 30 mins.
Round 5: In-person interview, might be with the business unit head. Similar questions + case study related to Knowledge Management.
Day 15:
Round 6: Telephonic round with a Global stakeholder, similar questions such as why this role/why bain/understanding of the role + some industry based questions related to my current work. Lasted about half an hour.
Day 20:
Round 7: In-person interview with the Hiring manager. Question related to role, checking one’s understating of the role. Interviewer was kind enough to explain the role in-detail as well. Again about 25 mins long
Round 8: In-person interview with the HR. Experience based questions/notice period/current salary/salary expectations/ who all in family etc.
Day 27: (at this point I was surprised to hear that there are going to be three more rounds of interviews)
Round 9: In-person interview. Guesstimates: How many hours would it take to evacuate Gurgaon, in case of a natural calamity/ Estimate the market share for a new product: Air purifiers etc. lasted about 25 mins.
Round 10: Telephonic round with a Global stakeholder. Lasted about an hour. Similar questions.
Round 11: In-person interview with a Director, lasted about 75 mins. A few case studies/ experience based questions/tell me about yourself/ who all in family/role-related knowledge/why Bain/ why this role/ practice related questions etc.
Day 33: Got the regret e-mail, which said my skills don’t match. (LOL :P)
Positives of the entire process:
· Everyone was extremely nice, made me feel comfortable.
· Most of the interviews were about 30 mins long. Short and quick.
· The process was very well organized, prompt updates were available on the days of the interviews. Assigned SPOC was responsive mostly.
Negatives of the entire process:
· Extremely long process. Max. number of rounds I have given at any company.
· 80 percent of the interview questions remained the same in every interview. Every interviewer checked the same skills by asking pretty much the same questions. Which made the entire process redundant and counterproductive.
· Closing communication was held very poorly. After having invested a lot of time and effort, was just told that my skills don’t match in a 50 seconds call. And when I emailed for a detailed feedback, received no feedback at all.
· I had rounds in each for the last 4 weeks, which made it very difficult to manage work at my current company. Since I was called at Bain offices thrice. So I had to take offs thrice in 4 weeks and a work from home in the other week.