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Not exactly an initiation or 'price of admission', but perhaps a plan you carry out to gain a group's favor to see if you're worthy to join. Your submission for their consideration. Best example I can think of is in the movie Now You See Me, all those heists they did was actually in hopes of gaining entrance to The Eye. What would you call those heists? Their ___ ?

The word I'm looking for is a single word that escapes my memory, and it's not about a test. It's something you do to curry favor for admittance to a group.

EDIT: The word was audition.

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    Not a single word, but perhaps a rite of passage.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Oct 20 at 20:19
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    Historically a masterpiece was " a work of a very high standard produced to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts" but that meaning has been superseded by the more general sense of a very good or best-in-class work.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Oct 21 at 8:50
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    Welcome @Zanzia! Please post a self-answer if you think you know a suitable word.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Oct 21 at 16:11
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    If they did heists in hopes of buffing their resumes enough to merit membership a criminal organization, but without formal contact with that organization, then it sounds like they did the heists on spec.
    – Doug Warren
    Commented Oct 21 at 19:11
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    Many a time, I'm just pointing out that no one suggested "audition" because the title and your description of currying favour within a group, didn't help. If you had said "interview" maybe someone would have offered audition as the solution. By the way, don't be surprised if the answer is not received enthusiastically, it's very bare.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Oct 23 at 10:35

7 Answers 7

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In your specific example, I'd go with

initiation(m-w.com)

Noun

1a: the act or an instance of initiating

b: the process of being initiated

c: the rites, ceremonies, ordeals, or instructions with which one is made a member of a sect or society or is invested with a particular function or status

The heists that the characters performed were part of the initiation into The Eye.

The characters hoped to be initiated into The Eye by performing various heists.

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    I haven't seen the movie. An initiation is usually a task assigned by the group to the applicant, as an admission requirement. A common example is fraternities that require applicants to perform embarassing tasks. It's not the appropriate word if a potential applicant does it on their own to get noticed.
    – Barmar
    Commented Oct 21 at 14:50
  • @Barmar - I haven't seen it either, but from the little context it fits. Certainly, there could be a better word. Perhaps too, "In hopes of being initiated into The Eye, the characters [performed heists]."
    – BruceWayne
    Commented Oct 23 at 2:08
  • That's the 1a or 1b sense, we're talking about 1c. They're obviously related, but 1a doesn't involve performing a dangerous or embarassing stunt.
    – Barmar
    Commented Oct 23 at 14:56
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Ingratiate: To bring oneself into favour with someone by flattering or trying to please them.

This could be linked to employing sycophantic attempts to ingratiate oneself into a group.

Source: https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Please note, my answer was posted before the OP edited the question after realising the word he was looking for was 'audition'.

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6

To curry favor in the hope of being accepted by a group that has good or bad aims, you might want to first establish your bona fides/bonafides.

bona fides (plural noun) — also bonafides

bona fides

  1. good faith; honesty, sincerity, reliability, etc.
  2. proof or proofs of honesty, genuineness, etc.
    Webster’s New World College Dictionary

bona fides

1: good faith : sincerity
2: the fact of being genuine —often plural in construction
3: evidence of one's good faith or genuineness —often plural in construction
4: evidence of one's qualifications or achievements —often plural in construction
M-W

bona fides (n.) A person's honesty and sincerity of intention: he went to great lengths to establish his liberal bona fides.

[Treated as pl.] informal documentary evidence showing a person's legitimacy; credentials: are you satisfied with my bona fides?
[Origin: late 18th cent.] Latin, literally 'good faith.'
The New Oxford American Dictionary

bona fide: 'in good faith'. It is used to modify some other word—bonafide intention. The expression bonafides (singular) is used as the subject or object of a verb (meaning evidence that somebody is who they say they are) as in: Her bonafides is above reproach.
Subhash Jain; Improve Your Word Power (2021)

To help establish his bona fides as a leader of the underworld he provided a fifteen-foot-high floral tribute at the funeral of a slain gangster, and to protect himself he bought an automobile with armor plating and bulletproof glass.
Marc Mappen; Prohibition Gansters (2013)

Her orders were to devote a couple of months to journalism to establish her bona fides before starting on her real task, which was to organize Spanish safe houses and escape route for French Resistance refugees.
Sonia Purnell; A Woman of No Importance (2020)

He shoots a policeman to establish his bona fides with the gangsters, and later cold-bloodedly sends the chief of police to his death.
Brian Docherty; American Crime Fiction (1988)

Many gang and low-level cartel members met in prison, where trust was built over time and where their "credentials" and bona fides were established.
Paul Rexton Kan; Cartels at War (2012)

We brought in an undercover agent named Tony out of Chicago who the New York gangs didn't know, a wiseguy lookalike right out of central casting. We made sure he made the rounds to all the bars and clubs frequented by made guys, always in the company of our boy Hackey to establish his bona fides.
Dan Addario et al.; Chasing the Dragon (2019)

Suspecting his bonafides, they mentioned their suspicions to their August Uncle, with the result that he was forbidden to approach the Vatican.
Frederick Rolfe; Chronicles of the House of Borgia (1901)

That seemed to establish his bonafides. She really seemed impressed.
Lee Bornstein; Slats and the Chanteuse (2019)

Exposition: As he lists his bonafides, we learn where Roman went to school, that he chose to fight for his principles over personal enrichment and that he's still an activist lawyer who's only doing criminal work to support his fight for progressive initiatives.
Josh Miller; Stuck! (2019)

Forbes spoke in a very low, very professional voice. "Mr. Zhol, we checked the man. His bonafides are real.
Don Pendleton; Oceans of Fire (2014)

With his shooting bonafides established, Chapman turned things up a notch.
Joe Cox and ‎Ryan Clark; Fightin' Words (2018)

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    Most people don't use this in everyday English, however.
    – DaemonsMercy
    Commented Oct 20 at 21:09
  • @Daemons The concept doesn't come up often in everyday conversation. One of the examples I added also uses credentials, but in scare quotes, since the underlying purpose is nefarious. The English in the examples isn't particularly formal. Also, we don't know what register the OP has in mind.
    – DjinTonic
    Commented Oct 20 at 21:23
  • What's the single word you're recommending (per question tag)?
    – Toby Speight
    Commented Oct 21 at 13:20
  • @TobySpeight bonafides if the OP needs it; however, I prefer bona fides (see the examples).
    – DjinTonic
    Commented Oct 21 at 13:58
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    @DanielSchilling it's an adjective without the s and a (plural) noun with. I'll add another definition (attesting late 18th cent.) and an earlier example.
    – DjinTonic
    Commented Oct 21 at 18:42
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You prove yourself worthy. Cambridge Dictionary has

prove
to show a particular result after a period of time

followed by

prove yourself
to show that you are good at something

Merriam-Webster has

prove onself
to show that one is able to do something or to succeed
Glíma was one of the surest ways to prove oneself and one’s worth to others.

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One sense of the word "in" is defined by Wiktionary as "a position of power or influence, or a way to get it." This is an informal usage, and might be considered slang.

See: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in.

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    You haven't explicitly cited a definition, but this is the relevant one from the full OED: in (noun, colloquial, originally U.S.) II.5.a. 1929– Special access to, influence over, or an understanding with someone of power, fame, or authority. Frequently in to have an in with.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 21 at 15:45
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In the context of criminal or otherwise nefarious acts committed on their own to garner attention (and not something assigned by the group they're hoping to join), I would go with:

notoriety

n. 1: the quality or state of being notorious

Which itself refers to: notorious

adj. 2: widely and unfavorably known

For example: "their heists were all to boost their notoriety and get the attention of The Eye".

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My preference, 'induct'.

Induct (m-w.com)
2
a
: to admit as a member
inducted into a scholastic society

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    induction is what happens when someone else introduces you to a group.
    – Greybeard
    Commented Oct 22 at 12:02

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