Had preliminary phone screenings with a couple people from recruitment before chatting with more individuals from the team and eventually coming on-site. While on-site I spoke with mid and high-level members of the Business Consultant team. The recruiters were nice and professional all the way through. This was for an entry-level position, coming in as someone with over 1 year of full-time, 9-5, post-grad work experience in tech. I'd been warned that the Chicago Slalom office is bro'y and advised to stay away. 1. When I arrived and interviewed with people face-to-face, they were definitely reading my resume for the first time. The interview felt very impersonal and condescending at times. 2. When I received my rejection call a few days later, it was for "not having enough work experience." even though this was for an entry-level position and I'd already had over a year's worth of work experience before applying at Slalom. My work experience was in tech, analytics, and client-facing work. These all are skills which would have served me well for this entry-level business analyst role. Additionally, up until the rejection I'd breezed through the interview process and received praise from all employees I'd initially spoken with. It is clear by looking at me I am LGBTQ, so receiving this particular rejection felt like a cop-out. There is this question of cultural fit in addition to qualifications. I certainly did not feel welcome or assessed fairly during my onsite as opposed to non-face-to-face interactions I'd had before. I do not fit the mold of what a consultant looks like and Slalom likely didn't want to tarnish their precious image by having a gender non-conforming person represent them in front of clients. Having gone through many interview processes, I can tell the difference between a valid and invalid rejection. This was an invalid reason to reject someone. It felt like they didn't bother to give my resume a fair chance during the onsite and they suddenly forgot how to read it upon meeting me. I'm surprised Slalom has a 100% rating from the HRC given their reputation. I suggest higher-ups do a crackdown of the Chicago office and make sure the client-facing people they're bringing in don't all fit the cookie-cutter stereotypes of what your consultants "should" be.

I was first contacted via telephone one of Slalom's recruiter who asked some basic questions prior to us meeting in person. The in-person interview with the recruiter was very insightful into what the company does and how the business is structured--I was asked a number of questions about my background. I then moved on to a series of 3 separate in-person interviews with various consultants/managers in the field. The last interview was with the Managing Director of the area, after which I received an offer.