Wondering what the general culture is at a place like HOK. Considering a junior position in NY or Chicago. General reputation, training, hours, opportunities to move up, etc? Also how would it look to future employers a few years down the road? Thanks.
I have a few friends who work or worked for HOK in NYC. They seem to like working there but they do tend to log in very long hours, even longer than many smaller design firms.
If you are interested in working on large international projects, HOK is great.
From what I understand, they don't pay very well, particularly at lower levels.
I worked for HOK Sport Venue Event in kansas City. And was just recently offered a position at HOK Chicago.
The Chicago office pays considerably lower than K.C.
I was making a base salery of 38K and working overtime on the weekends(almost every weekend on a major league stadium design)The Chicago office offers a gross me salary of only 34K., which I have no idea why they pay so low. Probably, because they are still small, only about 60 employees. Their growing which is why they want to invest money in getting the jobs through basic marketing, rather than hiring talent.
I think it comes down to simply the matter of negotiating salary.
If you want to work in NY or Chicago, on average every corporate firm hires around the same talent and work ethic of young architect. And they should compensate each equally.
I know many who work for the HOK mother ship here in STL. It is considered one of the best firms to work for here, offering a nice balance of design, technology, and work environment. It seems the individual offices have a good amount of autonomy (I coud be wrong about this) so each city may vary widely. Never heard anyone complaining too much about hours here, and the pay seems to be pretty good for a city with an incredobly reasonable cost of living to begin with. While the phrase evil empire will often escape my lips in referring to them, the reality is that if you want to work for a huge international firm you could probably do a lot worse.
Anyone work for HOK?
Wondering what the general culture is at a place like HOK. Considering a junior position in NY or Chicago. General reputation, training, hours, opportunities to move up, etc? Also how would it look to future employers a few years down the road? Thanks.
I have a few friends who work or worked for HOK in NYC. They seem to like working there but they do tend to log in very long hours, even longer than many smaller design firms.
If you are interested in working on large international projects, HOK is great.
From what I understand, they don't pay very well, particularly at lower levels.
I worked for HOK Sport Venue Event in kansas City. And was just recently offered a position at HOK Chicago.
The Chicago office pays considerably lower than K.C.
I was making a base salery of 38K and working overtime on the weekends(almost every weekend on a major league stadium design)The Chicago office offers a gross me salary of only 34K., which I have no idea why they pay so low. Probably, because they are still small, only about 60 employees. Their growing which is why they want to invest money in getting the jobs through basic marketing, rather than hiring talent.
I think it comes down to simply the matter of negotiating salary.
If you want to work in NY or Chicago, on average every corporate firm hires around the same talent and work ethic of young architect. And they should compensate each equally.
I know many who work for the HOK mother ship here in STL. It is considered one of the best firms to work for here, offering a nice balance of design, technology, and work environment. It seems the individual offices have a good amount of autonomy (I coud be wrong about this) so each city may vary widely. Never heard anyone complaining too much about hours here, and the pay seems to be pretty good for a city with an incredobly reasonable cost of living to begin with. While the phrase evil empire will often escape my lips in referring to them, the reality is that if you want to work for a huge international firm you could probably do a lot worse.
Just applied to to the KC firm. Interviewing next week.
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