Booz Allen Hamilton reviews

3.9

74% would recommend to a friend

(10,421 total reviews)
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Horacio D. Rozanski

79% approve of CEO

55% positive business outlook

Booz Allen Hamilton has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 10,421 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Booz Allen Hamilton employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

10K reviews
3.0
Feb 4, 2013

Not What It Once Was...

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) is pretty stable if you work in the technology sector despite changing government sector. If you work in Cyber, Systems Development, or something related your job security is pretty stable. Even when contracts funding becomes problematic I have never found issues finding new projects. One thing I love about BAH is that they seem to offer pretty flexible schedules which helps work-life balance. It all depends on the contract though. If your offsite at a government office things are pretty limited depending on the contract, but if your working onsite management wil let you work from home at times and with the new hoteling model you can eliminate long commutes altogether. I think BAH offers plenty of opportunities to network with individuals even though hoteling model has taken away from this somewhat. There are plenty of forums, focus groups, and events to give you an opportunity to meet people across the company.

Cons

BAH is extremely political. You may find yourself in hot water at times for saying the "wrong" thing. The "wrong" thing depends on the person and can range from just being honest and at times not responding at all to something. The culture at BAH can be troubling at times. From my experience individuals tend to go to someone's direct report about an issue rather than resolve the issue with the individual. Management from my experience has accountability issues when it comes to their own decisions when things go awry. Moving up in BAH will require you have the right people in your corner. Again this is about politics more than anything else. Who your friends are and who is backing you is very important. Nevermind what your peers think it's more about WHO thinks WHAT that matters. Recently, there has been an exodus of people leaving the firm. As others may have echoed in their reviews the firm was purchased by Carlye Group and Investment firm. Things began to rapidly change afterwards. What also hurt the company was the decision to go public. As a result of the new market and declining earnings, the ECAP (401k) program will be revamped giving employees less employer contribution. Many benefits have been reduced or eliminated. Employee rewards are less, networking events (that cost money) have been eliminated, and PTO accrual rates have been reduced. BAH was a dream company to work for 5-6 years ago, but they are slowly becoming an average company that does not pay competitive wages according to the market. What attracted people to BAH was the culture and benefits. Both are a shell of their former selves.

2.0
May 1, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Hours are manageable; good job security usually; it's a good firm for people who want a relatively chill yet halfway decent paying job working for a government agency. Good for folks in grad school or who want to spend more time w/family or other pursuits. Not good if you're actually trying to be a management consultant

Cons

There are very few (if any) true consulting projects here. There may be some IT work that Booz does that's kind of like IT consulting, but that's about it. Just because you have or work for a "client" does not mean that you're a consultant. Accountants, Lawyers, Talent Agents, Therapists all have "clients." A true consultant is someone who comes to an organization briefly to provide strategic advice (Strategy Work -- McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte Strategy etc.) or someone who comes to implement change and then leave (Implementation/Operations Work). This is not Booz Allen. Booz sends employees to government agencies to do the work that a regular Government Service employee would do otherwise, and they want their team/employees to stay on that client contract for as long as the government will let them. I gather that Booz pays less than other firms as well. This firm is fundamentally not really different from a CACI or SAIC -- those two firms don't masquerade as "consultants," they are simply government contractors. Booz Allen is a firm that decades ago used to be an actual consultancy, but is now in effect just a big government contractor.

1.0
Nov 14, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Mentoring at lower levels of the company Steady benefits Well known name Good place to start a career (only) Minimal opportunities for promotion mean that being a former Booz Allen employee is a badge of honor in the DC-area consulting industry.

Cons

Noncompetitive salaries Heavy debt load paid for by low employee salaries More layers of middle management than a 10 foot birthday cake Compensation tied to individual performance leads to backstabbing Step on each other to get ahead mentality Steadily declining benefits Ethics that are a joke Questionable ownership structure Stifling bureaucracy for its own sake. More vice presidents than you can shake a stick at Overhead numbers that aren't truly billable Perpetually eroding benefits Ridiculously high overhead that encourages clients to go elsewhere on price Outsourced HR and tech support Minimal opportunities for promotion IT that is run for and by IT, making for impenetrable, useless systems. Hypocritical PR campaigns that advertise changes to company policy and software as though it were good for you.

Viewing 19 - 21 of 10,421 Reviews

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