Great showround in the studio visiting all the work and client spaces. A good coffe and seating in the big work/cafe was a good ice-breaking. Then in a cozy welcoming meeting room.

Round 1: Alignment call w/Gensler Recruiter Round 2: Meeting w/studio leadership Round 3: Meeting w/studio jr. leadership Round 4: Meeting re: offer/comp Position advertised and interviewed through 3 rounds as Senior Project Architect. Offered a different, lower position. Easy to pass on that basis alone, however there were numerous other red flags, as follows: 1. Incompetence of Chicago office leadership. Gensler Chicago well known as worst in the firm for both turnover and office politics. Office wide leadership did not acknowledge this problem in interview process. Office is not consistently profitable due to poor project management. 2. Offered compensation vs. actual compensation Large percentage of total compensation is based on overtime. Employees are often punished by management for billing the overtime they are required to work. This is incompatible with maintaining a long term healthy business. 3. Unprofitable Senior Staff Gensler Chicago seems to be a place where people who have accomplished little else aside from self promotion seem to end up. The effect is a large number of unprofitable senior employees on the org chart which in turn, reduces the amount of productive, competent people they are able to hire. 4. Poor reputation among local Real Estate development & construction community Gensler Chicago is not taken seriously by the Chicago development and construction industry at large. This is due primarily to its promotion of personally difficult under talented, technically incompetent designers. Secondly, due to the firm's inane internal politics that often adversely affect client projects. Thirdly, due to overall indistinct quality of work (not attractive, inefficient AND difficult/costly to construct). On a positive note, the Gensler recruiter I dealt with was very helpful and excellent at his job. Some of the jr. studio leadership was clearly more capable than office wide leadership, but likely held back by internal politics.