Booz Allen Hamilton Reviews

Pros

The people who adhere to what the culture used to be are the best part about the Firm. The work is diverse and there is tremendous opportunity to grow in the lower levels within the firm. The benefits are awesome and there is a lot of flexibility in work hours and telecommuting (for the most part).

Cons

Growth was too fast and being owned by the Carlylse group is slowly (or quickly) sucking the soul out of the institution. Since going public it's all about the bottom line, and a lot of great people have left or been let go.

Advice to Senior Management

The circle of trust is broken. Fix it if you care about keeping the reputation intact. It used to be about the people, make it about the people, but not just because they are a revenue stream. Act like you know what you're doing.

Pros

Booz is very good at capturing large contracts and building a pipeline for future work through them. The people are great, always challenged by and learn from the high caliber of people I've worked with.

Cons

The partner-centric model that worked for a <10,000 person company won't work for a >25,000 person company especially as the leverage models have continued to increased. This has detached us from our clients and our ability to establish relationships. Since partners have limited time, they must prioritize their focus to winning the large contracts that provide the basis for their business. This necessitates them to ignore the client needs and micro-trends that have led toward the current state. It also reduces our offering to the most basic needs of the client, staff augmentation. While we've always been ONLY as good as our people, that's more true now than ever before.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus teams in each market to contract captures and define a business development function
Restructure (more) of the leadership team to develop true service offerings and engage new commercial markets with them at a price that makes sense. Perhaps its even a subsidiary. We know how to do this, cast yourself back to the 90s for the model. This can be an incubator for the work that drives revenue in 5 years. Last, restructure the leadership and establish M&R for a company of 25,000. Too thin at the top and too little connection to clients, middle management and staff throughout.

Pros

Great place to get your start or end your career. Great processes, fluid operations and a solid reputation. Still turns heads nad piques curiosity when found on a resume.

Cons

Salary tends to be around 10-15% below that of your peers. Non longer the prestigious "consulting firm" it once was. Now more of "contracting company" like a Lockheed Martin or an SAIC. Nothing wrong with that per se, just not as much pride in membership as there was before the Booz & Co. sell-off. Now exclusively government in focus, it has taken on a feel of being very hide-bound by former rank in the military or civil service. Just another (expensive) place to work now. Good, just not special.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to recapture the feel of the old BAH: consultants employed by the Firm, not simply contractors whored out to clients; make upward mobility beyonf Lead Associate a real possibility for solid performers, not simply for those retired from the proper rank, who are buddies with the clients; bring your cost profile in line with the rest of the industry, you can't afford to be the most expensive anymore. You are now just another consulting firm.

Pros

I got lucky and was recruited into their Strategic Communications practice. The team culture was fantastic and I got the ability to meet and work with many talented people. They also encouraged me to get inovlved in other firm activities like diversity, recruitment and volunteerism.

Cons

Overall it felt a bit hierarchial. There was a process and approval for antyhing which sometimes actually was a benefit. I felt after one promotion it would be very difficult to keep "climbing" each strand in the promotion structure.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the talent and clients. I think going public has hampered the culture.

Pros

Booz Allen gives you the opportunity to tailor your own career without someone saying you can't. There are plenty of positions available for different clients and due to the company's "matrixed" structure, you can work anywhere, for any client while remaining on the same team. If you don't like your team, you can switch teams. To excel, you are expected to work within the competencies of the next level. For me, I started as a Consultant (L-1) even though I had 5 years previous experience in the field. By my first year, I was able to be promoted with a substantial pay increase (part of this was due to getting two additional professional certs) and increase in PTO days. BAH lays quite a bit of importance in its ethics. "Ethics First" is their program, and its the cornerstone of how the company conducts business. Honestly, coming from a much larger company to BAH was a breath of fresh air because of this and that the company does seem to really care about it's employees.
Company has great benefits and their ECAP program (basically your 401k) ensures that after your first year, the company contributes 10% of your salary to your retirement fund automatically each year. You can contribute as much as you want, so this can help you build up a retirement fund fairly quickly. Of course, it takes you 6 years to become fully vested, and if you leave before then, you lose all the contributions the company has made to your ECAP. Not too bad of a deal when you get down to it.
Overall, I enjoy working for Booz Allen Hamilton, and recommend it for anyone who is looking to break away from larger company that doesn't put much emphasis on employee satisfaction.

Cons

PTO days are your vacation days as well as your sick days. 16 days to start off with in your first year. Not the worst deal, but I was used to having separate sick leave and vacation leave in the past.

Depending on what team you are with, you can have a totally different Booz Allen experience. Some teams are better than others because of management and funding; so there have been cases where someone gets hired on and within 3 months they are gone because they had a "horrible" experience. But one can say this about any company really. Personally, I switched teams because I wanted to expand my experience a bit with a wider variety of clients.

Advice to Senior Management

If you are a career manager, make sure you talk with your employees at least once a week to see how things are going.

Pros

Focus on the client and delivery of quality products.
Collegial work environment and solid benefits package.
Great work life balance with many opportunities to give back to the community.

Cons

Challenging times in the Defense Market.
Preference to hire new rather than train and repurpose current employees.
Being a publicly traded company.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer to train each employee in a secondary specialty that supports an emerging or in demand service offering. Training should start within two months after the employee's 1 year anniversary. Will help the firm integrate service offerings across markets and provide clients improved performance.

Pros

Top notch quality of colleague
Mission critical work
Notable recognition for individual contributions

Cons

Leadership out of touch with employee base

Pros

There are some quality people who care about their clients and their co-workers. The PTO is good and the salaries are ok. The ECAP (401K) plan is OUTSTANDING...far better than any other company I've seen. Depending on the team you're on, flex time is good and some of the management team understands team dynamics and strives to get the best from everyone. Work/life balance is good until you step into the upper ranks - life as a Sr Associate and Principal becomes a work-work balance.

Cons

Specific issues are the new minimum 42 hours of billable work for your client THEN do your proposal, marketing and admin work on top. I've watched many of my peers and team members look upon Sunday as another workday to get everything accomplished.

Also, the late winter of 2012 purge was handled poorly. Since the senior leadership/partners enacted the PR campaign of touting "Ralph's Bold Plan" was going to be good for the company - the company has seen their stock tumble almost 18%, and many of the Principals and Sr Associates who survived the purge are simply buying time to collect their annual bonus - then they will leave. Supposedly the firm "predicted" this and as such are poised to pay out larger than normal bonus to the managers in an attempt to retain...however, they will find they are pouring money into people who are leaving.

The recent federal ruling and loss of the large IDIQ contracts (SURVIAC/IATAC) means BAH (and other large, previously entrenched in the DoD firms) will need to compete all their contracts against lean, agile small firms who don't have sky high multiples - a serious issue which must be quickly addressed. The senior leadership needs to revamp how it approaches the market, how it makes itself financially competitive, and return to the days of taking care of its people.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of your people - be HONEST in how cuts are made, and will be made - be OPEN about the plan for the future and don't try to spin a bunch of "hogwash" (my grandmother's favorite phrase after "well, isn't that special"). Your employees WERE loyal and caring - and they are watching intently at how you handle the company and the current slump.

Pros

Great place to work. Very motivated co-workers. Positive work environment with many opportunities for promotion and upward mobility. Very friendly culture.

Cons

Politics sometimes play a major part in promotions past Associate (level 3). Sometimes client work can either be very slow or too much.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue providing awesome retirement plans, move people around more often to limit office politics. Identify talent and promote accordingly. Thanks!

Pros

Flex time - employees above the entry level (consultant) have an entire month to meet their hours.

Cons

Salary - employees hired under the old Booz Allen are compensated good. new employees are getting low balled.
401k - you may get a 10% match but the vesting period is 5 years. many of our new hires don't last 1 year.
Training - you get 40 hours a year but you are required/expected to make up the time to remain in the good graces of leadership.
Talent - one of our top performers is leaving every few weeks. only the slackers and unmotivated remain.
Career Mobility - staff are promised positions or work that we don't have then put into mind numbing roles. when they try to switch projects, they are stalled.
Assessments - the assessment process is very time consuming. since a lot of our high performers are leaving, unqualified staff are being promoted in their place... or worse yet, the highly qualified are forced to work with the less qualified and unmotivated.
Career Growth - not a lot of growth unless you're willing to stick to one project and ride it out through thick and thin.

Advice to Senior Management

We want the old Booz Allen back. I know you can't give it to us since you've lost control of the company... so we'll seek happiness elsewhere.