Booz Allen Hamilton Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – Applied online with referral. Referral passed my resume along to an alum who forwarded it to a hiring manager. Approximately three months later I was invited for a phone screen and subsequently invited to an in person interview. Approximately 10 other candidates were in the same group process. Each interviewee was interviewed by 3 persons. 1 of the 3 interviewers was impressive. 2 of the 3 interviewers seemed new to the organization.

Interview Details – Quick

Interview Details – Very pleasant interview process. Their HR office was polite and responsive. I was interviewed by 5 individuals who not only asked me about my relevant skills, but spoke in a very honest fashion of their own daily work demands and company benefits. The questions were technical and behavioral.

Interview Details – The recruiter asked some very basic questions regarding my resume during the first interview. Next was an online, timed writing assessment. I was given three options and one hour to submit the assignment. Finally, there was an in-person interview at their headquarters. I spoke to three team member in a round robin style interview. One team member asked about my leadership experience, the second asked about my competency, and the third gauged my fit at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Interview Details – After finding my resume in their database a recruiter contacted me about a possible new graduate position opening up. The questions were pretty standard interview questions. The recruiter asked if I was willing to relocate, general background information, leadership capabilities. The interview went okay for a first, but they were looking for someone with more of a technical background.

Interview Details – I have been referred for a handful of jobs with BAH throughout the past year, and I have had a negative experience in the times I have been contacted by HR. The time I did finally get an interview, it was done by phone from a subcontractor hired by BAH. This subcontractor is a one-woman-shop who uses the same phone number to conduct BAH business as well as sell her own cruise line/travel agency services among other businesses she has on the side. This was her own personal phone number as well, not a company number. I found all of this out after i did a google search of this person and had my friend who works for BAH look her up in their system.

Needless to say, her questions/responses were very unprofessional and she was very aggressive on the phone. She treated me as if I did not know what I was talking about or had any idea what I was doing. She accused me of not having any real interest in a job because I expressed flexibility in the particular work role I was interested in. After the 20min conversation she tells me it wasn't a job interview, it was a "clearing" system BAH uses to create profiles for prospective employees. And when she asked if i had ever applied for a job at BAH and i said yes, she accused me of lying because she could not find me in their computer system.

Needless to say, I quickly became disinterested in working for BAH. I have had other HR personnel email me to follow up on applications and not one has bothered to respond to my inquiry of how things are moving along or expressed any further interest. I can confidently say that this is a BAH problem and not a problem with my qualifications or interview style as i have received multiple offers from top contractors and federal agencies. There are many other internal issues BAH has, including ineffective leadership, lower than average compensation, reduced benefits, and poor values and ethical practices. I do not recommend BAH to any professional. There are other contractors out there with better practices and values than BAH.

Interview Details – I applied for a Senior Associate position on the Decision Analytics team (government side not commercial) at Booz Allen at their McLean Headquarters. The process started in September 2012, and recently concluded in December of 2012, after 4 interviews, and several months of waiting and misinformation, I did not get the offer.

My skills may have not been a match for the job, and I completely accept their decision. But I'm writing this review so that potential candidate know what they're up against when interviewing, and to highlight the unprofessional practices of their HR department.

The process involved 2 phone interviews and 2 in person interviews. But here's the big catch with Booz Allen - when they interview you, they're not really interviewing you for a particular position (though they don't tell you that) they're interviewing you to understand what you skills are to figure out what team you might or might not be a fit for. So obtaining a subsequent interview does not mean you're progressing or advancing and getting closer to an offer, it just means HR hasn't communicated with the people doing the interviewing, and they're simply shuffling you around, and having different groups talk to you.

Each round at Booz Allen is a black box - no one will tell you how many rounds there are in the process, and each interveiw was basically about "let's go over your resume". There were very few other questions, case interviews etc. By the final round, one interviewer talked about how they needed a Microsoft SQL expert, yet I never claimed to have any profficiency in SQL. But it took months of preparing and multiple interview to get to that point, only to be told that that's the skill they need right now.

 Finally, a particular HR associate also "forgot" to tell me that I was being called in for a final interview. She cancelled on me with less than 24 hours notice, said they were rescheduling the interview and then disappeared. When I finally called to ask if I was being considered for the final interview her response was "didn't anyone tell you?" I still didn't know that meant. So I had to speak two other HR people who claimed that I was being considered and invited me to the final interview event. After being asked about SQL repeatedly, even though it wasn't a skill on my resume, I was rejected. But here's the BEST PART of this review. Even though I was rejected for the Senior Associate position, no email was sent. So after waiting another month, i emailed the same HR associate from the beginning to figure out what my status was and she said that she I had been rejected weeks ago and she had sent me an email weeks ago. This was also untrue, as I never received an email from anyone, not to my spam or anywhere, I had succuessfully recieved all emails from Booz Allen in the past. This statement came from the same person who "forgot" to email me to tell me about the final interview.

All in all, buyer beware, the process is a black box, tons of miscommunication and your interests as a candidate come dead last. Please be respectful towards your candidates, you're setting a bad precedent.

Interview Details – Arrived with a group and was seat at a desk. Three interviewers (one at the time) and was individually interviewed.

Interview Details – I was contacted by a recruiter about a month after I submitted my application online and she set up a time to do a phone interview the following week. During the phone interview she asked me about my background and experiences and ended by inviting me to an onsite interview and asking what my desired salary was.

Prior to the interview I had to complete a timed writing assessment and fill out an extensive application/credit report & background check disclosure form (this is in addition to the application I had already completed on the BAH site)

When I arrived at the on-site interview the next week there were three other people being interviewed. We all had similar backgrounds and while HR told us that we were not interviewing for the same position I am pretty sure that we were as we all had applied to same posting. After a quick overview of the company and benefits I was ushered into a room by myself (it was very tiny and windowless with a phone on a small table and 2 chairs). I then had one person come in and interview me looking for consulting skills, the next was looking for my functional skills and the third and final interview was looking for leadership qualities.

I was told it would be about a week before I heard back and 1.5 weeks later the recruiter called to let me know that they had not made a decision. Finally, about 3 weeks to a month after my interview she called to let me know that I would not be "continuing on in the process". After the interview the other interviewees and I had exchanged information and none of them were offered the position either. BAH did not offer any feedback as to why I was not a good fit for the position (or if they decided to not hire at all).