Listen to Divya (2020) talk about her internship at Bain & Company this past summer.

Stephanie: You're listening to Gear Up, the Duke Career Center's student produce podcast showcasing real students summer internship experiences? My name's Stephanie and today, we're talking to Divya who worked at Bain and Company this past summer.

Divya: Yeah, my name is Divya Juneja. I'm a senior majoring in economics and public policy.

Stephanie: And where did you work this past summer?

Divya: I was working at Bain and Company in the Boston office.

Stephanie: And how did you find out about that position? Did you go through the formal consulting recruitment?

Divya: Yeah. Yeah, I basically went through it like the way Duke sets it up. So they all have info sessions, in the beginning of fall semester and then sending resumes, cover letters, networking, all that good stuff and then getting whichever interviews and going through that process.

Stephanie: So I guess let's start there because I know it is such like a specific sort of process. Right. So I guess, how did you like start doing like case prep? Like what did that all look like for you in terms like preparation? Right.

Divya: So the summer before my junior year, I did a little bit in terms of just kind of like listening to what a case even sounds like because I had never done anything like that before. So I just needed to know what it sounds like and what are the different types of questions you could be asked and things like that. So that's kind of what I did with some are not that much I skimmed. Case in point a little bit. I know people say to read that I didn't find it that useful, but I think honestly, the best practice is just doing live cases with people. So then starting in the beginning of fall semester, I had a friend and she was also going through consulting, recruiting, core recruitment. And so we basically had like set dates throughout the week that we were like, okay, we are gonna meet up in case each other. And so it is like three or four times a week we would meet and like I would give her one and she would give me one. And that was like honestly the best practice in terms of just like practicing cases over and over again and also setting one's up with other people that have already been through it or people that, you know, that are working at these companies now and doing that maybe once every two weeks, just leave their practice with different types of like case givers. But yeah, I would say the best practice for me was just doing a ton of live practice cases.

Stephanie: And how did you find people who had like worked there. Like upperclassmen who had already like the company.

Divya: Yeah. So what worked really well for me was that I had like one or two friends that had done it this summer before. And so I was able to meet them. And then they would be like, oh, I have these friends that also did this and like meet up with them. Or there's also a lot of. Because this was my junior junior year. There was also seniors that had been through it before and we're going through it again and wanted to have practice with it. And then I think a lot of times, like at info sessions and stuff or just like networking wise, you meet other people that work at the companies now. And so reaching out to them and saying, hey, would you be down to run a practice case with me is also very helpful.

Stephanie: So then what was the actual like interview process like?

Divya: So for me and for Bain, at least, it was uh you get a few like behavioral questions. So like experience wise. Like, why do you want to do this? Things like that. And then it was mostly a case then. And so it was two two of those two 30 minute kind of cases for the first round and then the second round list to forty five minute cases and kind of similar setup of like behavioral questions in the beginning and then the case afterwards. The first ones were live or were in person, and that was at the career