Professional Musician to Consultant at Bain & Company (Ty’s Story)

Ready to get inspired? Ty Sheets started out as a professional musician and spent a stint as a teacher before ultimately landing a consulting offer at Bain & Company.

In this conversation, Ty shares the keys to his Bain offer, including the strategy he employed to succeed in networking, case interviews, and more.

This episode includes a Fan Mail segment on the best consulting firms for work-life balance.

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Transcription: Professional Musician to Consultant at Bain & Company (Ty's Story)

Japheth Mast

Ty Sheets, welcome to Strategy Simplified, really excited to have you on the podcast today.

Ty Sheets 

Likewise, Japheth thanks so much for having me on. I'm looking forward to it.

Japheth Mast 

Of course, really looking forward to getting your incredible story of breaking into Bain for our listeners. So let's just dive right in. Can you just share who you are. So provide a short intro of of your background, both personal and professional, whatever you want people to know about you?

Ty Sheets 

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm from a small town in southwestern Virginia, cultural Howie, actually back in Virginia for the first time in quite a while to go to UVA, Darden School of Business, which is kind of fun, but grew up wanting to be a musician. So music was my first passion, got a couple of degrees, and that really became passionate about performance as a trumpet player.

Ty Sheets 

So I got a bachelor's and a master's and was performing and teaching and all that for several years, in the early part of my career, I got to perform on cruise ships and travel all over the world, which is really super fun experience. I got to see a lot of really interesting places and meet super cool people transitioned into a nonprofit organization called Citier after that, working in high need schools in Kansas City, Missouri, and a couple of years of full time AmeriCorps service with city air before joining staff as a manager, so lead teams and partner with schools and manage those school partnerships for about four years prior to going to business school.

And then last year, I guess, yep, 2022 got admitted to UVA Darden School of Business. And that's where I've been ever since. It's been an amazing experience and got the opportunity to intern with Bain and Company last summer, and their Denver office, and that's where I'll be returning this fall.

Outside of that I have a wonderful wife and a nearly two year old daughter, they share the same birthday, and that's coming up in about a month now. So exciting times on all fronts.

Japheth Mast 

Man, that's incredible to to have two people in your family that have the same birthday. But more broadly, that's a really cool story. And I'm stoked to get into that a little bit. You know, your background and as a musician really serves as living proof that right there's, there's no background, no story off limits, not only just from consulting, but I would say even for whatever folks want to do.

So glad to have you on. Yeah. So let's just go there you were, you're talking about your time in the music world and nonprofit spaces, you know, what we term a quote unquote, non traditional background or path. And you were in that before your MBA, how do you view that as having served you up to this point, and how that will, will set you apart or just kind of help you succeed inside of consulting? Just, you know, you being you and bringing that that incredible background to the industry?

Ty Sheets 

Sure. So on the one hand, I think that you know, non traditional backgrounds are becoming more and more traditional both for Business School, which is where I'm at now, but also in consulting firms. I think a lot of firms have really started to realize the value of having people who have a big variety of experiences.

So I think the that having the background that I did, both in music and in education in the nonprofit realm, helped me make some really valuable connections and build some really strong connections and relationships with people with people who were also from some uncommon backgrounds and already had been made the transition into business school and ended up in their consulting firms.

And I think they're capitalizing on that on that value now, so I'm lucky to be kind of at a time where yes, I was the only one doing anything like an MBA or trying to go into consulting within my personal orbit. But when I started the process, I luckily was able to find others who had done similar things. They'd been teachers before joining consulting firms, or they've been artists or things.

So that was just a really powerful way for me to find and get to know people in a meaningful way. And really, you know, they wanted to pay it forward. On their behalf, they wanted to help me out and wanted to let me know kind of how the process looked and how it went and what I should do and that type of thing. So it really helped me make some unique and meaningful and important connections in the process.

But I think more and more broadly, my background one in music kind of helped me, you don't become a musician, if you're not willing to put in just a lot of work. You know, it's it's a grind to be a professional musician, for sure. It's a passion, it's a passionate grind, but it's a grind nonetheless. So that taught me how to work absolutely as hard as I could to achieve my goals in general. And that stayed with me ever since I think that's played a really important role in getting where I am today.

And then working in nonprofits and working in schools and with kids has taught me how to narrate my thoughts and break down ideas in a way that other people can understand them. That sounds like a pretty simple like, duh, everybody should be able to do that type of skill but I think what I've learned is that that's something I could be perhaps differentially good at. And it's helped me both UVA Darden and my MBA program, but also over the summer thinking sort of, you know, working on a consulting case team and working with clients and thinking about how to distill an insight into, you know, communicate it in a way that they understand it really well. So being able to communicate and break down ideas, was a huge part of that education experience that I've brought with me into now.

Japheth Mast 

That's amazing. And I'm hearing different types of transferable skills and that that word transferable skills is something that's very important for anyone looking to break into a career like, like consulting, right? You need to be able to do the things that consult consultants do but how do you? How did you translate your experience your skills into something that would work for consulting, right, whether that's on your resume if you have one resume tip, but whether that's networking or something completely, different, but I think a lot of people listen to this are like, how did he do it?

And you know, for me, for myself, I have an untraditional background, how do I, you know, help translate that and help consulting firms see that I would be a valuable asset to their, to their firm and their clients?

Ty Sheets 

Yeah, so I think there's actually a lot of value in being self reflective, and understanding kind of where you're going and what you're needing to do right now to get there. And like where you are in that process, and I think the journey through music, for me was a very self reflective process and turned me into a very self reflective person. So I think I, I mean, honestly probably also turned me into an overly self critical person, which I've kind of tried to grow out of as the years go on.

But anyway I think that that's, something that has been valuable for me going into my MBA and into a consulting job is just being very much aware of trying to be aware and reflective of where I actually am in terms of my skill level, my confidence level, etc. And that helps me kind of know, know where I'm going. I think, you know, the other piece of this is that I, you know, I have a perspective on on things in the business world that is not necessarily like what what most other kind of traditional paths might offer or my brain, I grew up in a different area than most people I know here at Darden, or Bain, I did different things in my background, professionally.

That kind of means that I can approach a business problem from a from a fresh perspective and with a fresh set of eyes. And I think being able to gain some confidence in how I want to share that that opinion, or that perspective, has really been a huge value add for me as I've started to try to learn how to be a consultant and an MBA student and all that. So that's all to say, I mean, I think being self reflective, and being able to be confident that I do have a perspective. I'll be at a different kind of perspective, that that's valuable to solve problems with.

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Japheth Mast 

I love that I think that's an inspiration for anyone listening, that anyone can do it.

Ty Sheets 

Yeah, absolutely.

Japheth Mast 

It's kind of like enough said, but but there's more to say.

Ty Sheets 

Yeah, actually, you know what one, one more thing I did want to mention is, is the value of telling a story, you mentioned the, if there's any tips I had on maybe a resume, or even just in general, I think one thing that music taught me was really being able to tell a story is, is the goal of any great piece of art, whether it be music, or an artwork, or something else. And people relate to stories, and people want to hear stories. So I when I put my resume together, I wanted to put it together in a way that told the most impactful story it could about me, what that meant, was translating my achievements into really, really clear, measurable bullet points that told a strong story about what kind of person I am at work, what kind of leader I am, and demonstrated in an impactful way, so that the overall story was sort of communicated. And also that it can be understandable. So telling a story with a resume, that you're an impactful and capable leader in a way that's not filled with jargon and tough to parse through. That's, challenging, but if you can do that, you can really go a long way.

Japheth Mast 

I mean, you're speaking my language, and I'm beginning to see more and more of why Bain hired you. But that's what we preach to our, our resume clients, right. You know, most people in consulting, probably don't have your specific technical background, whether that's an engineering or music or teaching or whatever, they don't know the terms. So reframe your experience in a way that it a 5th grader could understand what you did and why it mattered. Right? Bringing it back to the simplicity of that. Yeah, amazing. Well, we have lots of folks in our community that tend to disqualify themselves for lack of a business background or whatever other, quote, unquote, correct background, you need to become a consultant. It's like, you know, whatever is the right background, I don't have that. What's, what's one word of encouragement or advice you'd have for these, these folks?

Ty Sheets 

I touched on this a little bit earlier. But especially having kind of done this come to a school like UVA Darden and gotten into a firm like Bain, I see far more people with, quote, unquote, non traditional backgrounds than I ever expected, it's still not the norm for sure. But there are former military people in these firms, there are former teachers or former artists, there are nonprofit managers, all over these firms, you just have to kind of look for them.

And I think that says that that should be a little notch of confidence in that these firms are looking to build pipelines, not just from the traditional finance, or accounting backgrounds, that sort of traditional kind of candidates. So that's an external piece, I think that should help hopefully help people make you feel more confident about that there is a path here for me.

And I think my second point to that would be on the perspective piece, once more, I think the way that I look at the world, and the way that I think about things is profoundly informed by where I'm coming from as a musician, and as a former educator. And that's really, that's very, it's very different from how a lot of my peers here, think about it from my peers at Bain thought about it. And, you know, it's, that's a valuable thing. I mean, having a dissenting opinion, and being willing to share it or asking why something is done, the way it's done, can be super helpful in a group and team kind of work setting. Because it pushes people, other people to think differently, helps you really understand the situation more and inaccurate, it could expose and it has, for me many times, it has exposed kind of a crack in a in an assumption that we've had, or we're really a change in the paradigm in how we're thinking. And that's like, unlocked another level of the project or a value that that we can release. And I think that's, that's really probably where the majority of the value that hopefully I can bring to the firm like Bain comes from is that ability to see things from a new and fresh perspective and a willingness to share that in a productive and constructive way that can really kind of turn turn things around if need be.

Japheth Mast 

And you're really preaching now, I will have it. Thanks for sharing Ty. This is really valuable.

All right, let's talk a little bit about the Bain internship and how you got there. And a couple of things you did to enable the the offer but can you just first start off sharing a little bit of an overview of your recruiting journey. So you know, go back to the beginning and kind of walk us through step by step and then we'll dive into a few of a few specific aspects of that process.

Ty Sheets 

Sounds good. So mine, my recruiting journey was very much tied to my MBA journey. And I know that not everybody out there is wanting to go into consulting firms through that channel. But with that caveat, I started actually the recruiting process prior to my first semester, in my MBA program, there's a program called experience Bain, which is meant for incoming MBA students. And it's kind of rounded informational sessions and learning experiences that they offer. And actually, I did them because I was interested in them. But I also encountered a Darden alum, who was at Bain in a senior manager role in the Denver office and he was also a parent. So I connected with him. And we had a chat. And that turned actually into monthly conversations that we would have throughout the entire first semester, and like the heavy recruiting season, so he was a huge resource for me, and I'm lucky to still call him a friend, he's no longer at Bain, but he's he's become a actually a mentor, for me, and in my professional life more more broadly.

So that was a huge part of my recruiting journey. Obviously, I did the other things like most other people do in the recruiting process, you know, attending events that the firms are throwing to share information, doing networking, coffee chats, I'm sure we maybe we will talk about coffee chats in this conversation, or perhaps in the future, but you know, your standard sort of things about where you're actually trying to get insight and information about the firms that you're interested in. So a bunch of those coffee chats happened, talk to a lot of great folks at firms, including Bain.

And then the next phase is trying to prepare for case interview. So you're hoping that the networking process went well enough to where you're kind of on the radar of the firms that you're interested in, and they want to kind of get to know you more and give you a chance to actually interview. The casing process is a complex, but I found kind of a fun process. I worked my butt off throughout that process, getting ready for interviews. And luckily, things worked out on interview day. So that was kind of a broad overview of the steps that I went through.

Japheth Mast 

I love that. So you identified someone with a similar, you know that you had a connection with right Darden alum, and you reached out network, plus network your butt off in a bunch of other ways. But I think that's like, one of the key takeaways I'm taking away from just your journey here really quick is the importance of, of talking with people, not just kind of blindly submitting an application and hoping that someone will see it, but doing the legwork before to ensure that you have a much better chance, of getting looked at.

Ty Sheets 

I mean, one more thing on that, if you don't mind Japheth I think that that the people are the best resource actually, in this process. A lot of people I think approach, the networking process is kind of a check the box type of thing. And that that makes sense. Because you know, people feel like it's kind of a volume player trying to have coffee chats with as many different people as you can. And that's, that's one way to approach it. But I think for me, I thought about it as I want to actually genuinely get to know the people at these firms on a human level and build human connections, because that's just kind of how I want to approach things. That was good, I think for me, because I actually got to know what they thought about the firms and the culture and life at those.

But number two, it helped me build more meaningful relationships and actually helped me build champions within the firms who wanted to advocate for me when the decision to about who to interview conversation came up and they wanted to, you know, they wanted me on that interview list. And then, you know, when when the offer discussion came up, maybe they wanted to advocate for me to have an internship offer. So I think I can't overstate the importance of people along this journey and the ability to connect with them in a meaningful and genuine and authentic way. Is one much more fun, but it's actually much more helpful, I think, and the recruiting process as a whole.

Japheth Mast 

I love it. Consulting's a human business.

Ty Sheets 

Absolutely. Definitely is definitely is.

Japheth Mast 

Well you've got a ton more to share about networking and coffee chats, but I think we'll save that level of detail for another episode. So folks, stay tuned for part two of this episode with  Ty. But I want to want to dive into a popular topic hot topic case interviews. So let's let's go there. What what was what was the, I don't want to say secret, but what was what was the key to you, as far as being able to, you know, deconstruct a case interview and eventually build up to the place where you, you know, you performed well enough for an MBB firm to say, yeah, that guy's got the chops. Let's bring him on.

Ty Sheets 

Sure. So, I think first of all, I viewed this as a hobby. It might sound easier than it is, but but whenever something as important as this comes into, into my sort of goal set, I want to really devote any extra time I have any, any extra energy I have to practicing and learning and honing the craft. You know, performing on case interviews is not rocket science, there are distinct pieces, there's distinct tools, there's distinct frameworks, etc. You know, most people can do really, really well in case interviews, but the right set of tools, most people do not view this as something that they can continually work on and get significantly better in a short period of time.

And so I treated it as a hobby. I watched Management Consulted case interviews, in my spare time, that might not be for everybody. But that's one way I think that helped me, you know, and I would discover morsels here and there that I that you wouldn't expect that it would just kind of stay in my head when I was, you know, brushing my teeth and listening to an interview, like, like a mock interview.

I think the second most important thing I did was, I found a way to measure my progress. And I asked for feedback, every single time I did a mock case. So I actually built kind of a little rubric for myself. And I had a tracker where I kept really detailed information on all the cases that I did, who I did them with, and then I scored myself on each of the major sections of the case interview. And I had specific behaviors that I wanted to check for in each one of those to give me the aggregate score. And then I would weigh those different parts of the case interview in a certain way, that would give me a kind of a composite score out of 100, where I could, I could observe my performance over distinct portions of the case interview over time, and also my overall performance over time. I think this was very important to me to understand, okay, am I generally going in a positive direction, of course, this is all subjective, but but getting as much structure in as you can towards out of your head and on a spreadsheet or on paper.

And if you can see yourself generally getting better, you can also see, you know, am I trending in a certain way in my exhibits, and brainstorms and training in a certain way on my recommendations. And that helps me like, in, you know, if I needed to do a high leverage, drill, you know, spend an hour drilling something, I knew exactly where I should turn. So measuring myself in a really intentional way, over time, I think was a was a game changer for me and getting better.

Japheth Mast 

That's amazing. Did you just give yourself feedback kind of in the moment after a case? Or did you record yourself and then like, rewatch that case.

Ty Sheets 

I actually never did record myself, I asked for feedback directly from the people who interviewed me. So I sought out the people who I thought were the sharpest, most capable, most experienced people that I possibly could, a lot of them were my peers, you know, peers who were going through the same process at the same time. But me know, for other people out there could be people in the in the Management Consulted community, who are also doing case prep, etc. But I found the best case was I could find a case with and I asked for their their most brutal feedback possible.

And I also would case them so that I could, you know, we kind of case each other so I could see how they sorted through a problem or, or approached a particular, you know, brainstorming session, etc. So that would give me a lot of ideas, too. But I'm big on feedback. And I think that I think a lot of consulting firms are also really big on feedback. So getting accustomed to getting constructive feedback is really important in this process. And I think it was a huge deal for me to just ask for really, you know, genuine and firm but but helpful feedback.

Japheth Mast 

I love that. It might need to save and get that that rubric template from Ealing drop it in the show notes. At that is really helpful. And obviously with all that we're seeing a clear theme of just taking a structured approach to the whole process, which is you know, which is one of the main things firms are testing you for in the case interview. As we're starting to get to the end of this convo, do you have a kind of just general case interview resource you want to point people to kind of mentioned the mock case interview videos, is there anything you'd add to that?

Ty Sheets 

Again I'm gonna come back to the people being your main resource. There are there are a million case books case resources Management Consulted has a lot of stuff on their website, you can the information about case interview itself that can be found with it with any any sort of Google search, the way you're really going to get better is to find the people who are doing it alongside you and people who can help you and who want to help you maybe in your MBA programs that looks like second years who have interned at firms you're interested in, or alums of your MBA program who want to help. Maybe it's the Management Consulted community, maybe it's a community that you can build organically yourself. But I think people are going to be the main resource. So don't sit don't try not to be isolated as you're preparing for this stuff. Because other people will be the biggest and most helpful resources I think in the process.

Japheth Mast 

I love that. Don't isolate yourself in this process. Yeah. That's huge. Alright Ty well, this has been really amazing, inspirational thing, folks are gonna find a lot of value in it. Tell us one or two things that you're really looking forward to you about starting at Bain?

Ty Sheets 

Yeah, so I'm looking forward most to the challenge. What I've learned about myself, especially through starting my MBA and going to Bain over the summer is I'm at my best when I'm at the very edge of my abilities and my comfortability level. It's not it's not the most comfortable thing, but I know that I'm getting better and I can feel it when I'm whenever I'm really challenged. When I'm surrounded by really smart really capable people. At Darden in the first year was especially true. I was at the very edge. But I thrived. I think whenever I was put in that position, I'm so that's what I'm looking forward to when I join Bain.

Japheth Mast 

Well, we're excited for you. Well, let's, let's uh, let's end this with a couple of personal questions as is tradition here on Strategy Simplified, so I'll just shoot these your way. Rapid fire, right. Yeah. Okay. Word on the street is that you're a jazz legend and some circles? What's what's a favorite memory or moment that you have from as a performing?

Ty Sheets 

That's a good question. There's so many. Probably. So I had the chance to join a summer program when I was in college at Disneyland in California. And it was like it was a band that we did performances all throughout the park each day. And so we worked hard all summer to develop these routines. And we built kind of a following of fans in the park, who would come multiple times a week and follow us around and cheer. And the last day of that program was just this huge emotional release of just we were all playing our hearts out. And I mean, there was mobs of people crowded all around our performance. And it was just, it was a very, I'll never forget that. That moment. And luckily, it's actually it's up on YouTube. So I can watch it again whenever I want to. But that last day performance at Disneyland was was really, really something special.

Japheth Mast 

Oh, man. Yeah, that sounds epic. I have to go check that video out. And so fun. What a fun piece of your history to be able to to share with people. Yeah. All right, well, let's say what's the next place on your travel bucket list? And why is it on the list?

Ty Sheets 

My bucket list. I would say, Cleveland, Ohio. And the reason is because that's where we're going to watch the April 8th Solar Eclipse. So Cleveland is gonna see four minutes of, of total eclipse, we saw the 2017 eclipse in Kansas City, and oh my gosh, it's the most amazing thing to experience. So yeah, Cleveland. Funny enough.

Japheth Mast 

Oh, that's, that's that that's baller. I love that. I'm gonna make my way up to Cleveland as well.

Ty Sheets 

You should I highly recommend that.

Japheth Mast 

All right. Well, Ty thank you for your time for sharing your your story with our with our listeners. And we will get you again on another episode of Strategy Simplified with with more of your story before long so thanks again.

Hey, y'all, Japheth here. Hope you've enjoyed this episode with Ty before we let you go want to answer some fan mail. So this is a new segment where we answer your questions, check out the link in the episode's show notes to text us question. We'll answer it in a future episode. So make sure you keep coming back to hear our answers to your question, but we love engaging with you.

Without further ado, here we go. Again, this question is from a listener in Oakland, California. The question is, I'm wondering what the best firms for work life balance are. Can you break down the top few in terms of work life balance and are there different tiers of firms for work life balance?

So this is a bit of a complicated question. The answer is always it depends. Because it varies so widely across offices across firms and across geographies. The real way in the best way to figure out what the work life balance is, at any consulting firm is to talk to people there, aka networking. Before you back off, because of the word networking, it doesn't have to be that scary, we're simply talking about having a conversation with another human.

So you're gonna go on LinkedIn, you're gonna look at the firm, and look at the people that work there. And, you know, look at the people that work in the offices that you're targeting, you're gonna reach out via email. So check out our consulting firm directory, and I'll link to it in the show notes to figure out what the email moniker or the format is, for each firm, and then send them an email, ask for a 15 minute call at a specific time, hey, I'm planning to apply to your firm to this role, etc, or, hey, I'm researching firms can we connect for 15 minutes, I have a few specific questions around X, Y, and Z, right?

You're gonna hop on a call, you're going to ask personal positive and specific questions. And you're going to get your questions answered. Right. And then that doubles as a great referral for an interview, right, if the firm does referrals, and if you end up applying to that firm, right, so networking is the best way to figure out the work life balance at a from.

And I'll just tell you, it varies widely. Like I said, across offices, industries, geographies, firms, generally, the smaller the firm, the better the work life balance. So you're gonna be looking at different boutiques, but there's also a few mid to large size firms that do offer you a bit more of that balance at the MBB you're not really going to find it, especially in your early career as you move up the ranks. That increases a bit. But again, the best work life balance typically tends to reside in the kind of boutique and smaller firms tier.

But again, networking is the best way to figure that out. Join our Black Belt program for one on one coaching will help you creating networking strategy will help you write the email will help you figure out what kind of questions to ask will prepare you for the case interview will edit your resume, and on and on and on link in the shownotes to learn more Black Belt we'd love to help you get your networking plan in order so that you can figure out which firms are the best fit for you for your life for your lifestyle, which stage of life you're at, etc. And we'll get you on your way to landing an offer. It's pretty crazy that over 80% of Black Belts learn at least one offer inside of consulting. It's a pretty wild stat. 

Anyways, listener in Oakland California. Thank you for texting us your question, hope this helps. Reach out to [email protected]. If there's anything else we can do for you, we'd love to support you on your journey into consulting. Alright, that's it for me guys. Peace out.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify to help give the show a boost in the algorithm. We'll see you again next week.

Conclusion

If you are feeling as inspired by Ty's story as we are - talk about the hard work and dedication that went into landing this incredible role - we encourage you to looking into Black Belt or Strategy Sprint for expert help in your own consulting recruiting journey.