Just another ghosting story.
I applied through Linkedin after seeing the position and that I met the requirements. A few days later, a recruiter got in touch to book the first interview and I will tell you how each step went.
* Round -1 (Screening): A standard conversation with the recruiter to understand a little more about the company, the project, talk about my career, etc. Some interesting information I learned from this first conversation was that the tech consulting area at Bain is very new, it's still about 2 years and there are few people working. Some projects are focused on tech but some are still support for other projects developed there. These projects generally last around 3 or 4 months, some may last longer. You can choose between working 5 days a week with 100% compensation or 4 days with 80%. Depending on the compensation it could be very interesting. The tech projects are focused on AI using OpenAI tools, which they have a partnership with.
* Round 0 (tech test): After the screening they send a take home test consisting of 2 parts, one where you must write answers to questions related to a hypothetical project in a document (it should take about 3 or 4 pages) and a tech challenge to write code based on a problem they propose. It's nothing very complex, but you can't take more than 5 hours to solve, so you have to choose carefully how you're going to answer the questions and implement the code.
* Round 1 (tech interview 1): A technical conversation with a software engineer to discuss your solution to the previous test, how to implement future improvements in the code, also ask other technical questions, etc.
* Round 2 (tech interview 2): another technical interview, this time with an engineering manager, dedicated to asking more questions about technical knowledge, some behavioral ones related to working in consultancy, things like that.
* Round 3 (Hiring Manager): According to their description, this interview is to access problem solving and communication with stakeholders, but I was a little doubtful about that. The interviewer proposed an imaginary problem (without drawings or notes) about a beer company that would like to optimize its costs and save resources. Initially I tried to ask questions to establish the scope of the problem, such as what costs I would like to save, whether there is data analysis on possible spending bottlenecks, things like that. The answers were always "we can do an inception initially to collect this information". So I had to start proposing solutions based on assumptions. I tried to start with the technological part of the problem, since it's my area, but he cut me off and said I didn't need to worry about that, that it was a problem related to resource management and logistics. I tried my best, considering it's not my area of knowledge, and managed to come up with some solutions in the end. He said this is a standard question they ask all candidates in any field. He didn't give me feedback on whether he was satisfied with the solution or not.
* Round 4 (Partners interview): This step is carried out with two Bain associates to "assess cultural fit with the team and relevant experience".
After each round they always responded quickly (within 24 hours) with a message to schedule the next round. But after round 3 they just stopped responding. I tried to send an email to follow up on the process but they disappeared. Which is a shame because I liked the people I talked to during the selection process and I was excited to work there.
Fun fact: this same recruiter interviewed me in 2021 at another company and ghosted me there too.
