Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described in which a base station and a user equipment (UE) may perform beam refinement within a random access procedure. A UE may transmit a random access request to the base station and, in response thereto, the base station may transmit a control channel order to the UE that indicates to transmit a modified random access request. Resources for the modified random access request may be determined based on the random access request, the control channel order, configured resources, or combinations thereof. The base station may monitor for the modified random access request using different beamforming parameters and determine a refined beam for a subsequent transmission in the random access procedure. The base station may use the refined beam to transmit a random access response to the UE, and complete the access procedure.