Hi Alexey,
I do not have direct experience with Accenture, however I have applied via referral for McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Oliver Wyman, Roland Berger and Strategy&. In all these cases, the referral helped me to be invited for interviews, but did not change the actual interview process – so you will have to go through the same cases as someone who applied via the website.
Some options that can instead help you to skip part of the process are:
- having an offer from a company similar to the one you are applying to. After I received an offer from OW, indeed, I contacted BCG, where I had not started the process yet, and managed to complete the whole process in just 4 days and 3 interviews, instead of the usual 5/6.
- a very strong performance in the first round. A person I helped in the preparation managed to get an offer from Bain after just the first round, skipping the second, thanks to an excellent performance and the fact he mentioned he was interviewing for other MBB. This is definitely less common than the first case though.
Hope this helps,
Francesco