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Honestly, this isn't very nice to have sprung that on you randomly without notice.

I do agree on the premise of testing people asking for referrals, as I wouldn't want to put someone forward whose abilities I didn't know or who I thought would struggle in R1. But I always let them know well in advance, and I adjust the difficulty based on where they are in their prep (early on would be a normal case, and if just about to apply I ask if they want to do a hard one instead, their choice).

Frankly that shouldn't be considered screening. The only way this would act as a screen is if the person then specifically shares your applicant detail (name / email address) to recruiting and tells them of your performance (good or bad). Now it may affect their personal decision to refer you later (if that was ever on the table), but if they decide not to, nothing should stop you from asking somebody else.

 

Thanks for the response! Do you know if Bain has a process of considering this? I'm planning on applying to a different location (not sure if the offices talk about applicants btwn them) solely because I want to avoid a bias as looking back, I definitely could've done way better on the case. It kinda sucks tho cuz I networked heavily with this office but I don't want to risk not getting a first round solely because of this. I also emphasized how I barely started my case prep and sent a follow up email asking for feedback acknowledging that I felt like I can improve but didn't get a reply. Thanks again!

 

Our screening process is entirely managed by HR, as far as I know. Now we can have formal feedback for specific candidates (say from on-campus events, etc.), so we do have an impact, besides the general referral system.

As for offices communicating between them, that I am not sure of. There is a centralised system, sure, but if the person you spoke to is a Consultant, I wouldn't expect them to be in contact with the Recruitment team at other offices. How would they even know them other than searching on the company's intranet?

Now, Recruitment Teams between them may coordinate however. But unless there is a red flag (these are rare but do happen, last one I heard of was a candidate saying something wildly racist mid-interview... the Manager interviewing here literally had alarm bells going off in his head :D) in your application, every office makes their recruitment decision individually (with some general alignment at the region/country/global level, broadly speaking).

I don't know why this person decided to test you randomly, but if you want this to concern to be squashed, your best bet is to improve your caseing skills and case again with them, showing them improvement. That should alleviate any concern.

 

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