Both your examples are referrals of sorts.

Broadly, you can consider referrals to be a pile of “must look” resumes. It is a bad lemon / good lemon theory. The going assumption is tending to believe that if a person if skilled enough and driven enough - they will find a way to get a referral.

This immediately gives more weight to the CVs in the referral pile. However, the success/failure depends entirely on your performance in the process. Referrals in consulting do not generally impact your final success rate.

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Hi there,

1 - It does depend on “how” they forward. If they say you're a great candidate and they should take a look at your resume, that's essentially a referral! If they say “x person have some questions about applying, can you help them”, that's not!

2 - Yes!

3 - There's no hard and fast number for this, but referrals seriously help and do dramatically increase your chances…put simply…get referrals!

Both but a referral is really not that formal where the only assurance is that your CV gets the full attention of a recruiter.

Brand names are often used to gauge the level of achievement (e.g., selectivity, impact, etc.) and at the same time, the majority of MBB clients are large brands where the experience is more transferrable. Either way, a referral definitely will help with getting the attention to your profile and so I would just trust the process.

Good luck!