Applied online to their Chicago office, about a week later someone from HR contacted to schedule an initial phone interview. The engagement was very "cold" and felt like Huron's corporate culture may be similar. Prior to the interview, I reached out to someone at Huron to try connect and maybe get a feel for the company. Sadly I had no takers, which again raised red flags to the type of corporate culture one may find at Huron. You want a collaborative, friendly environment and when no one in the company is willing to engage or talk about how great the company is, that's a warning.
Huron categorizes itself as a Business Services organization, however, based on my conversations with them they don't really qualify for that sector. They have the feel of a very operational firm, still in its infancy, trying to grow into a business services organization. However, at their core, they appeared to be just an implementation firm helping companies do the actual software configurations and physical implementations. There was zero attention or focus on any type of strategy, customer engagement, customer experience, or anything you would get from the more advanced firms.
Huron is still trying to figure this department out. It has been moved around a few times and I wasn't convinced yet they really understand their market, their customer, or how to approach either. It is also one of their smaller departments with only 25 consultants nationwide. The role I was interviewing for was a managers role, however, their description of the role during the interview again felt extremely junior. They advertise personal growth and learning as part of their core values, but unless you are a new graduate with zero work experience I didn't really make the connection between their organizational talent pool and opportunities to learn and grow. I didn't have the impression they are looking to hire clever staff. It was more of a focus on hard skills and very operational.
Interview questions weren't really standard, in my opinion. They were fairly old fashioned. One question was, "walk me through your career timeline." This is a question people asked in the 80's. The modern take on this is, "tell me about yourself." So again, their line of questioning seemed very "junior" and evolving. The way an employer engages with you is a clear indication of what kind of organization you will be entering. If their interview questions are reminiscent of last century, then the way they engage with clients is probably not far off. So if you are fresh out of school with a technical degree, Huron would probably be a great stepping stone into the professional world. If you have more than 3 years of experience, Huron probably isn't the place for you.
During the interview, I think the interviewer forgot that the interviewing process is a two-way street. I was just as interested in interviewing Huron as they were interviewing me. So when I asked questions, I’m not sure the interviewer realized I was “sizing” them up. It was really an old fashion approach of here is a question, now give me your rehearsed answer. There was no form of real conversation going on. Huron was very good about getting back to me in a timely manner. Within a week I knew their intent for my application, this was very positive. However the second I hung up the phone, I wanted to withdraw my application.
In the end, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and instead sent a follow-up email trying to reshape the conversation into something more "managerial." However, I didn't have the impression it was well received. Again, an organization who is not flexible, innovative or approaches problem-solving creatively is a tell-tell sign on how they operate and how they will engage with you and their customers. Based on my conversation I can only imagine the type conversations they are having with their customer base.