Finished the Bain sales/AE loop a few months ago for a role on their alliance/partnerships side. This is specifically for people like me who come from enterprise SaaS sales and are trying to break into a firm that doesn't really think of itself as having 'sales roles.' They call it business development, or account development, or strategic growth, and the interview is calibrated to that framing.
Some things that surprised me:
They do not want your cold-call war stories. I went in leading with quota attainment numbers and got polite smiles. What they actually care about: how do you build a long-term relationship with a C-suite buyer, and how do you represent your firm's capabilities without overpromising the delivery team. Very different from SaaS sales optics.
The case element exists here too. I had to do a condensed market-sizing exercise. 'How large is the total addressable market for consulting services in the financial services vertical in North America?' Not expecting a precise number, they want to see you build to an estimate without panicking.
Relationship IQ over activity metrics. The partner I spoke with was explicitly asking how I think about multi-threaded executive relationships. They're not buying leads and dialing, they're farming accounts across years. If your pitch is 'I hit 140% last year,' you need to translate that into what it means about your approach to relationships.
The behavioral round. Standard STAR-method stuff but with a consulting flavor. 'Tell me about a time you had to align stakeholders who disagreed on the problem definition, not just the solution.' That nuance matters. Have at least three stories that show you can deal with ambiguous problem spaces.
I did not get an offer, honestly. I think I came in too transactional. But I learned a lot and would prep very differently if I went back. Happy to dig into what I'd change.