I recently went through a final round and was ultimately rejected. One thing I found slightly unusual:
Before the decision, I had checked the LinkedIn profile of the Associate Partner involved in my process, and my former manager was not a mutual connection. About a week after receiving the rejection, I noticed that both my recruiter and the Partner involved in my recruiting process had newly connected with my former manager on LinkedIn.
It could of course be completely coincidental, but the timing made me curious.
Has anyone seen McKinsey do informal backchannel reference checks before making a final hiring decision? Particularly at the final-round stage?
