Booz Allen Hamilton Reviews

Pros

The ability to manage my own career and projects.

Cons

Highly social nature of decision making often results in it taking a long time to make decisions.

Advice to Senior Management

Balancing working load across the firm's levels will be important for continued strong growth and quality delivery.

Pros

- Nice salary boost
- Great 401(k) plan
- Seems to have great knowledge share aimed at providing better government solutions
- Extremely intelligent individuals - great to learn
- Because it's a large company, they have the ability to hold you on overhead for a longer period of time than a smaller company - so there is that small safety net

Cons

My experience has been the following:

- Felt deceived by the recruiter as we specifically agreed that I was not being hired for a certain job, and that I would only support in a given "corridor," yet when I came on board I was offered a position well outside of the agreed upon radius as well as the only jobs targeted were the position specifically identified as outside of my career path and not what I was hired to do.
- Culture definitely feels as a butts in seats type environment
- Company seems to only care about the bottom line, less about employee development and needs
- Constant fear of Lack of Work letter/furlough
- Limited to no management support in finding positions while on the bench
- It seems as though you're an external candidate applying for positions within the company; still go through multiple interviews and a lot of communications to obtain a position

Advice to Senior Management

- Make more targeted hires; rather than seemingly hire as many bodies as possible and ultimately select the best candidate when on board and cutting away the rest, ensure slots are available and hire people based on their merit for that position
- Hone the company culture to better focus on the employees; there does not seem to be a lot of loyalty and trust. I think this would make employees think of Booz Allen as more of a career move and less of a short term resume builder
- Technical ability does not translate directly into great leadership; select managers wisely and not because it's the next logical step or for pay grade

Pros

Some pre-public legacy culture remains:
Hire staff for a career, not just a single project
Collaboration is rewarded
Smart, fun, dedicated co-workers
Ability to shift around in the company as your interests change and markets mature

Cons

Since the company went public, weird and erratic behavior from senior management has become the norm. Focus on quarterly results has resulted in bizarre hiring quotas, lack of work letters when staff are unbillable, and significant time required by senior associates and principals to report on status of pipeline and utilization.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember what made the company and culture a great place to work - the pressures for quarterly earnings instead of taking the long term view for clients and staff will ultimately change the culture for the worse, eroding the competitive edge and the 'secret sauce' which has made us a favorite with clients.

Pros

Good training opportunities
Good pay
Time off when needed

Cons

Limited clients in Atlanta so no areas for growth
Run entirely by men - women are not promoted as easily/quickly as men
Limited clients means working outside of your capabilities, so you tend to stagnate.
Since going public, every penny is counted and it is very hard to get anything approved.
Very click-ie - hard for new employees to break in to the clicks.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote women, focus on creating new opportunities, loosen up and don't be so stuffy

Pros

Flexible work schedule and manageable work load.

Cons

Home grown culture that is hard to change and government centric.
Promotion is more political than anything else.
Diversity is not really there.
Core values such as respect and professionalism tend to disappear the more senior people are.
Colleagues are hard working, but mostly lived and educated only in the Washington DC metropolitan area.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more from outside firms. Also, enforce the core values you preach about more to the senior level managers and executives. Ensure true diversity is buiilt in and that the company starts to think using a longer term view.

Pros

Very flexible work environment. Salary and benefits are decent.

Cons

Need to do a lot of politicking to be able to get ahead

Advice to Senior Management

Think more strategic and long term. Senior managers need to do a better job of finding work for staff, holding people accountable for unprofessional behavior .

Pros

Benefits
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Salary
Work life balance

Cons

This company has seemed cold and distacted from it's employees.

Pros

Good brand value (for now)
Very good about taking time off
No face time requirement
Acceptable benefits package
Some teams have strong collaborative team environment (varies across teams)

Cons

Differentiated pay scale creates discord among employees.
Feeling of distrust associated with layoffs
Lack of information/disinformation from management. The recent firing wave was used as a messaging opportunity to both reassure employees, while also quashing anyones hopes for a raise or a promotion.
Growth based culture is coming apart at the seams in the current low growth environment. In the past, the firm's growth generated oppiortunites that enabled hard work to be rewarded. This growth drove career development opportunities and experiences. Without the growth, career development and opportunity has disappeared for the junior staff, who are growing increasingly frustrated at paying dues into a company with no opportunity for payback. Because of this, the natives are growing restless.

Advice to Senior Management

more honesty, integrity, and core values
less hypocracy and dishonesty

Pros

Brand name still has some respect, not a lot of management micro managing, still some good employees left after IPO.

Cons

Brand name is diminishing because of IPO and hiring of less talented staff, clients will micro manage you, turning into a glorified temp agency for people with degrees.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to spin everything and brain wash employees into thinking that this work is "consulting". It is more about putting butts in seats and we all know that is the game.

Pros

Benefits and liberal personnel time off scheduling, staff are treated like adults
Cross team support with intellectual capital
Interesting projects

Cons

Changing culture, going from management consultants to “contractors”, results in much less interesting projects
Morale damaging “lack of work” letter system that results in firing employees when they cannot find a project in specified time period

Advice to Senior Management

Build a better system to manage staff and require the systems use for all project staffing