University Careers

I experienced an incredibly hands-on onboarding at Maryville, which allowed me to understand how to contribute as effectively as possible. As a boutique consulting firm, consultants have the opportunity to play many roles, and this is true right from the start of my time at the company. I went through a training program for a few weeks, but I was also brought on to shadow others, and assist with work for clients very quickly. I found that I learn best by doing, and the onboarding process at Maryville gave plenty of hands-on experiences.

Due to the nature of consulting, I also feel as if I am never fully onboarded. The world is always changing, and technology is changing faster. Maryville has made active efforts to provide me and colleagues the opportunity to always learn the most relevant skills to our industry. I can think of two examples that exemplify this.

Twice a week, Maryville hosts internal JavaScript classes. These classes are run by more senior colleagues, and are aimed to spread knowledge for new and experienced hires. I have found that this classroom-like session with my co-workers has been a great experience for learning how we can use programming languages such as JavaScript to make our jobs, and our client’s jobs, as easy as possible.

Secondly, Maryville recognizes when an employee has the opportunity to expand their skillset into a new area. I had displayed an interest in the IT Operations Management (ITOM) space to my leadership team, and they in turn set me up to do an official Cisco training program to help solidify my networking skills, which has proven to be valuable knowledge when working in the ITOM space.

Could you describe a typical day on a client engagement?

One of my favorite parts of consulting in business technology is that there isn’t a typical day. My schedule varies dramatically depending on the client, the processes that we are optimizing, and my role on the engagement. However, I’ll attempt to describe my typical day now that I have more than 18 months worth of experience at Maryville.

I prepare for my often daily standup with the client. These standups usually cover 3 things: What did our team accomplish the day before, what are we planning on working on today, and is there anything our client can do to help us with the project.

I aim to ask guided questions of our client. Even though I am the expert in the project, it is equally important that I understand the needs of the client. Many of our projects involve examining the process and technology that our clients currently use, and recommending/delivering a better solution. During this process, there are often parts of the client’s current process that are absolutely essential to their success, and I must ensure that they do not lose those in our delivery.

One of the major things I love about Maryville Consulting Group is that we do not just define and recommend a solution to our clients, but we actually deliver the solution. After my daily stand up, I get started on the technical delivery component of my day. Generally, we will have worked with the client on defining the automation requirements.

What Types on Clients have you worked on?

My first client engagement was with a Fortune 500 Manufacturing and Engineering Services firm in the Midwest, which I would say has been my most valuable learning experience at Maryville so far. I was new to the company, and was expected to complete my share of the work for the project, regardless. This gave me a chance to try, and fail, with a team around me to help me learn from, and lean on when needed. Having the opportunity to make mistakes, rather than simply watch the job done, taught me much quicker than I could have imagined. Not only this, but working closely with another Associate who had only been at the company one year longer than myself, and seeing how much of an impact he was having on the project, motivated me even more to keep learning and giving my best effort to the company.

How would you describe the Maryville Consulting Group work environment?

There is never a boring day in the Maryville office. There is constant interaction and engagement with both my peers and leadership. My peers at Maryville are incredibly driven and passionate. Even with the amount of time and effort that each member puts into their work, every person I interact with seems to have passions that they devote time to outside of work. My peers seem to have a curiosity that is never sated, which motivates me to always continue learning and exploring my interests with them.

The leadership team at Maryville has found a great balance between pushing you to your limits, while also checking in with you along the way. They have high expectations, but also do everything in their power to help you meet those expectations. I have found in previous organizations that I needed to spend extra effort and energy to make myself known to the leadership of an organization. At Maryville, the leaders do everything they can to learn about you, and create the best possible environment for you to grow.

I have enjoyed living the St. Louis area, and Clayton has been a great place to work. The office space has an incredible view of the downtown St. Louis skyline, and there are plenty of great places to eat around the office. Venturing out to new locations to grab a meal with co-workers is one of my favorite Friday activities. Even though I spend a full week with my co-workers, we spend lots of time together on the weekend, whether it’s playing golf, poker, or doing other outdoor activities around St. Louis.

As a student-athlete on a basketball team, you built upon your strong foundation of leadership skills – how has that prepared you for leading at Maryville?

Even though this was not an academic or corporate experience, it taught me how to lead without authority, working with a team, and holding it together during difficult times. These are all skills that I have been able to apply directly towards my time at Maryville.

Working with a team is something that I do absolutely every day, and understanding how to approach certain team dynamics differently is a skill that I have been able to use, and get better at through my time at Maryville.

One of the most crucial parts of teamwork is knowing when to lead, and just as importantly, knowing when to allow others the opportunity. Knowing which situation I’m in is crucial to my success on the team, and the teams success itself!

My academic career also helped me change the way that I approach problems in my current position at Maryville. Although I studied Economics and Computer Science, my major in undergrad was Psychology. Most classes in psychology explore psychological issues that people have, and how to remedy them, but a class I took Senior year was titled ‘Positive Psychology’, which outlined everything that was right with people, and how to lead a full life of happiness. Taking this class shifted my mindset from mainly focused fixing issues in my life, to exploring ways to proactively make my life better. I found that this applies directly to the job that I do today. Although clients usually approach us because they are having difficulties in one area of their technological environment, I always make sure that I am focusing on ways that I could proactively improve the way that they do their jobs.

What are you looking for when helping to recruit the next group of leaders at Maryville?

First and foremost is recruiting and growing individuals that have the same drive to continually learn new things every day, just like the current group of Maryville consultants. Without an innate desire to learn, it would be difficult to be successful at Maryville. Secondly, I would look for someone that I would feel comfortable spending time with outside of work. Due to the small size of the company, I have know all of my teammates well, and having the personal connection with them has been an important part of my experience here. Similar to how we’re always pushing to be better and differentiated for our clients, I try to bring in talent that can work well with the team, and provide their own unique characteristics to the mix.

As a summer associate, I had the opportunity to observe and document Maryville’s engagement with a Fortune 50 retail company, which was focused on the revision of cost modelling and IT spend analysis processes. Our team was able to create a robust, efficient cost model that allowed for insight into Total Cost of Ownership for the products provided by the IT department. For the client, our work created a basis for spend optimization strategy and with our leadership, their TBM Office was able to continue to iterate on the cost model that we had established.  For more information on this engagement and the value provided, a case study I wrote is published here. 

What roles have you played since being a full time associate? 

In the months since I started at Maryville, I’ve been involved in an engagement with one of the top 20 universities in the country, working closely with their IT department to implement a Technology Spend Management approach. Throughout this engagement, the Maryville team has focused on evaluating service consumption, improving efficiency of financial and budgeting processes, and enabling value-based decision making. Specifically, my role involves liaising with key stakeholders on the client side and gathering the necessary data to analyze the budgeting cycle and identify key information for TSM implementation. Our eventual goal is to be able to show back spend to the different university departments to rationalize costs and demonstrate value of IT.  As a recent hire, I’ve especially valued this opportunity to come onto an engagement in the first stages of strategic planning, as it’s given me context for the kind of work Maryville does with new clients.   

What encouraged you to work at Maryville after interning here? 

Here at Maryville, the managers and directors work hard to ensure that it is an environment where you feel cared for and valued, and it showed in the day-to-day interactions I had during the internship.  The company culture is so collaborative and team-oriented—the mentors that I connected with at Maryville devoted so much time and energy to making sure that I felt confident in my work. It’s great to know that I could seek advice from any person at Maryville—regardless of their position or practice—and that they would put aside time for me to make sure that I have what I need to be successful. That culture along with the knowledge that I would be exposed to so many unique opportunities through my work here made the decision to return easy. 

What is your favorite part about working at Maryville? 

So far, my favorite part of working at Maryville has been the relationships I’ve built. I came in as a new hire with the three other summer associates who I’d built close friendships with. But even beyond hire class, Maryville makes a concerted effort to encourage its employees to get to know all of their colleagues and really integrate into the community. Over my first few months here I had the chance to meet and get to know everyone who works here via the frequent company events and virtual meetings Maryville hosts. Maryville is full of so many talented, warm, and intelligent individuals—being able to work alongside them has been the highlight of my time here so far. 

Upon graduation, Anna joined Maryville in 2018 as an Associate Consultant in our Clayton, MO office. Anna joined a high-performing team of colleagues recently graduated from WashU, SLU and University of Florida. Since then, Anna has been promoted to Associate Manager and manages a team of Associate Consultants.

In 2017, you described Maryville’s culture being a differentiator for you. How has your perspective evolved over time?

As part of the associate team within Digital Operations, I have the privilege of working in an openly collaborative environment with high-performing colleagues from various backgrounds. I have colleagues with backgrounds in biomedical engineering, data & analytics, business, computer science and psychology.

This diversity allows us to provide unique insights and creative solutions to clients.

The collaborative environment also provides the opportunity to identify areas of growth for our organization, internally. I have been involved in internal initiative efforts regarding training, onboarding, marketing, and more. This provides the opportunity to drive change not only at the client, but also internally to enhance our differentiating culture for my future colleagues. 

Could you describe some of the roles you’ve taken on in your first year with Maryville?

I have had the opportunity to take on several roles across diverse projects and industries. My first engagement was with a digital fast-casual restaurant chain – focused on alignment of the IT function through organizational change, process alignment and automation. As a member of the team, I took on the role of leading the organizational change management that would drive adoption of new ways of working across IT and Retail Operations. Responsibilities included defining a plan, developing content and delivering training and communications. 

Today, I am leading a project centered around custom application development for a client in the grain industry. I lead the alignment between product owners, leadership and the development team. This role has pushed me out of my comfort zone in areas of leadership, communication and client services, while bolstering my Agile Development skills.

Describe what your client interactions are like? Who do you work with on the client team?

My interactions with clients always center around the idea of a shared goal. At Maryville we emphasize that our team and the client team are not working as separate entities but rather as a collaborative unit. This relationship allows us to work closely to solve challenges and create business value.

In addition, it allows me the opportunity to work with clients at every level of the organization including at the Director and VP level. The past year of experience at Maryville has given me the skill set required to take on leadership roles in meetings as opposed to simply being in the room. I have driven critical conversations and decision making across all client engagements I have been involved with. 

What would you describe as your biggest accomplishment in your first year with Maryville?

I led organizational change management on my first engagement. Proper training and communication are crucial for buy-in to new ways of working with technology. I knew the importance of what I was taking on and I knew that my work was impactful towards the success of the project. I had peers and leaders that supported me, without telling me the answer.

The team pushed me to develop new ways to deliver our core training offerings – requiring an agile execution approach. I was asked to do something I had never done before, with challenging timelines and iterative cycles – building skills, leveraging my amazing peers and producing a successful client outcome. This is a common theme in the work I do.

In our previous Q&A, you mentioned the interview approach taken. What is it like being on the other side of the hiring process?

Recruiting is an exciting process, as I’m not just encouraged, but expected to shape the future of our team. As part of the associate team I am very involved in recruitment activities including the creation of content and marketing, resume reviews and interviews, and attending events and networking.

Our collaborative team environment means that we all can provide feedback and input into the hiring decisions for our team. This empowers us to truly invest in the recruiting process, as we see firsthand the value of bring in high-performing and highly-collaborative individuals. 

What would you describe as your aspirations for the upcoming year? 5 years?

I’d like to continue growing my professional skills in client services and engagement management. That will require challenging myself to identify new and innovative ways of delivering high-quality work for our clients.

Five years from now, I hope to take on a larger role in client development, actively working more closely with our clients to define and execute strategic roadmaps. At just over one year of full time experience at Maryville, I know that these goals are within my reach due to the professional growth I have experienced and the people and culture I have surrounding me.

Lastly, how do you keep up with the relationship between your personal and professional life?

I make a conscious effort to balance my work and personal life to ensure that I bring my best self to both aspects of my day to day.

The office being located in Clayton is a large part of how I make this work. It allows me to catch up with friends and family in the area easily with all of the walkable local restaurants and events.

Additionally, as a team we consciously make the effort to coordinate events with each other outside of the office such as team happy hour, weekend events, cardinals’ games, etc. This allows us to get outside of the office setting and enjoy each other’s company.