Sonya Hu

Share your journey to Bain.

When I first graduated from undergrad, I knew I wanted to have an impactful career, but I wasn't quite sure what that would look like. Bain offered me an opportunity to continue learning about the world, how different industries function, and how business leaders think. I knew this experience -- as well as the incredibly supportive, intentional, and brilliant people I met at Bain -- would prepare me to design and drive the broad social transformations I believe we desperately need.

“Build Your Own Bain” means creating a thriving career on your own terms. How have you been able to “Build Your Own Bain?”

In my intro professional development chat with my first supervisor, he asked me, "what do you want to do after Bain, and what do you want to learn while you're here to get you there?" I was taken aback by this question -- after all, I had only been at Bain for about three weeks -- but it highlights the spirit of flexibility, coaching, and deep investment in everyone's overall (Bain and beyond Bain) career.

"Building My Own Bain" has meant leveraging the various resources Bain offers to explore new interests, including externship, Extra 10's, and dynamic casework, as well as tapping into the vast Bain network to chat with folks who have seen every industry, every job. I have loved my experience working with Bain's Social Impact Team, as well as my externship at a non-profit, and I have had the privilege of having many thoughtful, wonderful mentors who are deeply invested my success and helping me wrestle through what it looks like to make an impact.

How did your college experience and major help you excel at Bain? 

The most important part of my college education was the way it taught me how to think critically about a problem in a structured way, but incorporating a variety of perspectives. I studied a variety of topics -- economics, computer science, and religion / ethics in world affairs -- which were individually enriching, but all the more fascinating when combined. I loved opportunities to explore topics from multiple angles, such as the role religious / philosophical traditions could play in setting a community's economic policy.

More tactically, my studies in economics and computer science prepared me well for the analytical side of the job. I don't particularly use any of the coding languages I learned from either major, but both fields taught me how to structure a problem, design a logical solution, then translate that solution into real code / analysis.

What advice would you offer students that are interested in recruiting for consulting?

Two things: (1) lean into what makes you unique, and (2) ask genuine questions.

On the first, I initially felt shy about the fact that I didn't have a business background and tried to emphasize my economics degree. However, most of my interviewers / recruiters didn't care about economics or computer science -- they were a dime a dozen -- but were far more curious about my religion / ethics in world affairs degree or background in public policy. What makes Bain teams thrive is not that we all studied how to read a balance sheet in college (because I certainly didn't), but the way we each bring our unique perspective to the table, so don't diminish what makes your point of view special.

The classic recruiting advice is to schedule networking chats, so I won't belabor that point; however, I think it's important to emphasize that these chats are for you as a recruit. Ask questions that you genuinely want to hear the answer to, whether it's a specific industry you're curious about or aspect of the person's background that just seems fascinating. It's never fun to hear "it depends" fifteen times in a row in response to "what does a typical day in consulting look like," so switch it up!

Tell us the Bain project you were involved in that makes you the proudest.

One of my first projects at Bain was an operating model redesign at a pharmaceutical company. Our goal was to design and roll out a new way for their R&D teams to work together, but we faced a major hurdle. The organization was tired of change and staunchly against the idea of any transformations -- even those that could make their lives easier and unlock the lifesaving potential of their medications. However, as we continued to collaborate with our clients, they slowly shifted from ardent deniers of the value of a transformation to the project's greatest advocates. One client who swore they would never have anything to do with the project ended up championing the new governance model and convincing the rest of the organization of its value. It was incredibly inspiring to get to collaborate so closely with our clients and to directly see the results of our work.