Strong Teams, Opportunities to Grow Individually - Senior Manager Clerestory Consulting Employee Review

The people at Clerestory are the best! They are smart, creative, driven, and fun to work with. Joining Clerestory is like joining a work family. The firm has a very close-knit culture with people that celebrate each other's successes at work and outside of work. The organization structure is flat. That does not mean there aren't different staff levels or opportunities for growth and promotion. It means that everybody rolls up their sleeves, willingly helps each other, and does the work that is needed. For a less experienced consultant, the flat structure can mean exposure to Clerestory and client leadership and executives, and for more experienced people it means you do more than oversee and manage work. The diversity of client industries and types of projects provide a lot of variety and different staffing opportunities, and a focus on the Midwest keeps out of town travel to client locations manageable. And, Clerestory consultants are not evaluated on billable hours or utilization, and are not penalized for being on the bench between assignments. In the last few years, Clerestory has made a significant investment in internal L&D. Two senior leadership roles are dedicated to the creation and maintenance of the consultant training curriculum, methods, playbooks, tools, deliverable examples, etc.

Clerestory provides an excellent, unique consulting opportunity, but it is still consulting. The work, regardless of all the pros that Clerestory offers, is not for everyone. Ability to work at a fast pace, adaptability, self-motivation, openness to feedback, and attention to detail are required.

Great hours for consulting, limited flight travel.

Please do yourself a favor and reach out to any former Clerestory consultant and ask them their thoughts on the firm. I don't even know where to begin...I have refrained from writing this review for over a year because I wanted to make sure that my emotions did not have a part in this review. As I stand today, I look back at this firm and can confidently say that it was an atrocious experience. Don't take my word for it, look at LinkedIn and see how long most employees' tenure is (hint: it's less than a year for the majority of employees). Some tidbits: - Most managers literally proof every email you send to client contacts. Not just that, THEIR emails are proofed by anyone more senior than them on most projects. The amount of inefficiency this brings about and lack of trust this shows is truly concerning. - Very often you hear the "Clerestory Way" as an excuse for doing things that are extremely outdated - Hiding behind the vail of "meritocracy," the firm's culture is one that is centered around favoritism. Not only is there no visibility into promotions (and firings), promotions happen without a heads up to the people that are being promoted and are given at the company-wide events by presenting the promotees with a puppet that looks like them (I wish I was joking) I could keep going for a long while but hopefully this gives you a little taste.