Ian McDonald graduated from UNC in 2020 with a Ph.D. He was interviewed by Cody Sorrell on March 5, 2021 when he was a Consultant at Bain & Co.
How did you decide to get into consulting in the first place?
I probably have a similar story to most PhDs that want to get into consulting. Close to my third year, I realized I didn’t want to do research long term and I found I had an interest in the business. I found myself going to every TIBBS seminar I could find, and I ended up going to a consulting seminar with a life science consulting firm. They walked through what a consultant does, what a case looks like, and what the interview process looks like. It was a great overview of the field and I was sold pretty immediately on the idea.
What activities within GBCC were useful for you getting your job?
I would start by saying really everything you begin doing early on is helpful in a different way. For students who are getting involved early, I would recommend just going to events. Some of the biggest drivers for why I was able to get an offer are probably due to (CG)2. Getting some real pro bono experience was important because it gave me the opportunity to practice what I had been learning during case interviews. It helped me grow and understand what I was getting into, helped build out my resume, and it was a good talking point for interviews. The second big part was the Cases & Cases group. Getting interview practice is very important and it is great for finding others who are on the same timeline as you and learn from each other that way.
What are your responsibilities as a consultant and is the job what you had expected?
For the most part, it is what I thought it was going to be. The variety of work is what I expected and hoped for and what drove me towards consulting. I have been on the same case for 6 months now, but within that case, there is day-to-day and week to week variation that keeps it very interesting. On a day-to-day schedule, there are client meetings that are interspersed with team meetings and standups to help align everyone on goals and topics. In between those things, there will be work that needs to be accomplished, sometimes that might be making slides or running analysis. You have to learn how to adjust quickly between areas and balance multiple tasks, which I find exciting.
What led you to Bain & Company?
Through the ADvantage program I was able to do a short one-week internship at Bain and just the level of support within the team and office really blew me away. The way that people worked together and problem-solved felt like it was the right fit for me. It was a great experience and something I would highly recommend to everyone interviewing. Also, I would recommend to everyone to reach out to as many people as you can at firms you are interested in and talk to them. You can really get a sense of the culture and feel for a firm this way.
What are your views on your current situation regarding work-life balance?
You do work a lot as a consultant for sure, but I think being on the other side of it as a PhD I feared it would be worse than it really is. There are stretches where things are very busy but at least at Bain, the teams and culture are so supportive that you are all going through it together. When things do slow up a bit there is a real conscious effort from managers to protect that work-life balance as best as possible. People additionally also wonder if weekends being protected is a real thing and in my experience that has been true.
Thanks to Ian for spending time with us to learn more about his experiences! If you’re interested in following his footsteps, you can visit the website of the GBCC or reach out to him via LinkedIn.