I recently completed R1a at both BCG and Bain SEA, and have been invited to do R1b for both next week.
For Bain, HR explicitly told me I passed R1a, and that's why I'm being moved to R1b. The recruiting guideline stated that "advancement to the 2nd interview is dependent on performance in the 1st interview," which reads as if each interview has its own separate pass/fail decision, rather than both being evaluated together at the end of each round. I'm not sure if BCG works the same way or differently. I also know candidates who did R1a (at either firm) but were not invited to do R1b, which adds to my confusion.
For context, I was fairly confident about my BCG performance, but for Bain I think it was more borderline — my structure wasn't well scoped, and I didn't drive the case as strongly as I had hoped. Nonetheless, I managed to solve both cases.
Questions:
- Is an R1b invitation a genuine pass signal for R1a, or is doing both interviews just standard practice before any evaluation happens? Does this differ between BCG and Bain?
- When deciding advancement to Round 2, are R1a and R1b scores combined, or is it solely from R1b result?
Would appreciate any POV from MBB SEA recruiters or anyone who's been through this process!
