How I Landed an Internship at Bain

By Adrian Obleton, Career Prep 2016

We here at MLT are pleased to feature Adrian Obleton’s story of how he got his internship at Bain. He is also is part of MLT’s Career Prep 2016. Congratulations Adrian!

“I didn’t always want to be a consultant. My first semesters in college were spent trying to hone my skills as a software developer. After spending some time working in that field, I realized it wasn’t really for me. I reevaluated my strengths and what I enjoyed doing. I eventually landed on consulting as the path I would like to take immediately after graduation.

Once, I realized what I wanted to do, I began researching to see what I needed to do in order to get a job in that field. The things I read were pretty disheartening. I didn’t go to an Ivy League school, my GPA wasn’t perfect, and I had never started my own business.  As far as the internet was concerned, I would not have a chance at a top consulting firm, even today.

At that point, I knew I would have to be perfect during my interviews to be competitive, but that was just a matter of putting in the hours. I probably spent over 100 hours working on consulting interviews throughout my preparation process. None of that would matter if I wasn’t able to get an interview in the first place.

Since my school was not traditionally targeted by the major management consulting firms, I had to find some way to get past the black holes that are online applications. I didn’t have any connections and very few alumni at the top firms, so I took a leap of faith and cold emailed people I found on LinkedIn. I think I sent about twenty emails to people at different firms. Of those twenty, only four responded and I was only able to set up calls with two of them.

One of the two people I had a conversation with was Nick Tandy, an MLT alumni and an associate consultant at Bain. Because of the preparation I had done and knowledgeable questions I was able to ask, he took a chance on me and referred me to a recruiter for their diversity programs. Because of that one relationship, I was given a chance to interview that I likely would not have had otherwise.

All of the effort I put into practicing cases would have been worthless if it wasn’t for my efforts to form relationships with people in the companies I wanted to work for. Networking was the reason I was able to get an offer from Bain.”