The first sign that this factory-like atmosphere produced a cold and unwelcoming work environment occurred when a group of employees refused to hold the elevator door open for me. They did not even bother to offer a quick apology as the elevator door shut on my foot. After I finally made it up to the eighth floor for my interview (a floor that is basically dedicated to conducting interviews), I sat and waited, as my interviewer was late. Things continued to go down hill after my interviewer realized that all the interview rooms were occupied. (Yes, even though they have a whole floor dedicated to conducting interviews, HR failed to ensure that there would be enough space to conduct all the interviews scheduled for that morning.) We proceeded to journey to two separate floors in search of a possible room to carry out the interview. We finally found a space in an abandoned office right by the construction going on across the street. It seemed that this debacle put my interviewer in a bad mood as she proceeded to be quite rude as the interview unfolded. She refused to answer several of my questions, and dismissed them by waving her hands around and indicating that they were not worth her time. At various moments, while I attempted to tell her about myself, she proceeded to conduct work on her laptop without giving me any signal that she was still listening to what I was saying. She also asked me if I had children; a question that I found extremely inappropriate. In short, it appeared that she wanted to make me as uncomfortable as possible during this unfortunate experience. Things only got worse when we turned to the case-style portion of the interview. She asked me about a complicated study that she had previously managed. When I started to map out my process for trying to solve the problem, she immediately told me I was wrong. While it is to be expected that interviewers will present roadblocks, it was out of place for her to shut me down immediately and not try to offer some other possible avenues for where to turn next. Additionally, when I tried to present a root-cause analysis of the case, she told me to stop harping on the “why.” At this point, I knew I would be unable to demonstrate my skills in such an unsupportive situation. After my interviews ended, I was told by the receptionist that even though EAB had offered to validate my parking when they invited me to come on site for the interviews, they now would be unable to do so, because HR had run out of the necessary forms. Overall, EAB demands a lot of time and energy from their prospective employees. (Two phone interviews, a writing test, and 2-3 in-person interviews.) The questions are not straightforward. While EAB indicates that its interviewees do not need to be overly familiar with business affairs or the issues in Higher Ed, this is simply not the case. I studied EAB’s website and reports for at least a week before each interview. (I made extensive notes and study guides for myself.) Even with all that prep work, I still felt that my in-person interviewers expected me to know more about the company’s methodology. The whole process felt backward, as if my work was being tested before I had any specific training experience for that particular job. After all the time and energy spent on EAB, I only received a quick, generic regret email that did not contain any specific feedback. My advice: do not waste your energy on this company unless you are sure you want to be a part of this type of work environment.

I took a Vista assessment test and met with several teams across a 6 week time period only to be told the company was issuing a hiring freeze. While they were engaged and enthusiastic about the company, everyone I met with seemed to have their own agendas and clearly had no line of sight to the overall hiring process. I was left wondering who was in charge.