Booz Allen Hamilton reviews

The continuous increase in hiring of former military members seems to be turning BAH into a quasi-government organization, where rank is still worn and recognized. So many military retirees in senior leadership positions is turning BAH from a meritocracy into a time-in-grade / time-in-service seniority-based system. This not only impedes professional growth opportunities for high-speed young professionals, but will serve to dilute the firm's corporate intellectual capital as young, energetic problem-solvers leave the firm to find more fair advancement opportunities at competitor firms who value ingenuity and performance over how long they've been around the firm. Quality folks will not stay long when told that they "exceed competencies for their level but are too young to be promoted."

The parts of Booz Allen more associated with the defense world tend to have more of the "good ole boy" mentality. Retired military are hired without and sort of extra orientation around how a corporate culture might differ from the military. On some teams, female workers should be ready and able to brush off and throw back comments from older male employees, because the senior men are always "just kidding." The women who succeed most on those teams are handy at flirting and/or joking in return, rather than addressing the sometimes inappropriate nature of the workplace. While there are some teams that understand the idea of a work/life balance, it is for the most part not respected by management. Emails are written and expected to be returned after hours. Weeknight dinner plans must be forced, if you expect to be there on time. As with any job, you might work on weekends occasionally, but only at Booz Allen would it be a regular and/or expected occurence. Without accounting for the time. As a government contractor, Booz Allen is held to certain standards, particularly around time reporting. However, it is well understood that even if you are only allocated 8 hours a day on a project, you may well be working upwards of 12 hours without accounting for it. The lack of accounting means that when the time period is up, you will have just met your time requirements so that, if your team even "allows" it, you would not be eligible for any sort of comp time. Booz Allen has a turnover of young singles for a reason: When you are older, or have married, or have a child, you realize that your job should not own your life. There *are* some managers who understand a work/life balance, but they are few and far between. Changing teams to work under those managers could incur the political wrath of the good ole boys. Though many promotions are well-deserved, there are also those that are made purely for political reasons (e.g. having more Associates under a person would help upper management build a better promotion case for that person).