The Bench? What? - Associate Booz Allen Hamilton Employee Review

I was lured into this position because I was told there was an abundance of work in my hub and that commuting inside the beltway or into NoVA was not going to be a problem. I asked a ton of questions during the interview process about projects, work-life balance, client locations, etc. and the answer was always "depends". Once I got to the firm, I realized day one that you're more or less just a number they use to bid on proposals. The "bench" is where you are when you don't have work. I was hired with about 10-12 other employees who all rode the bench between two to eight months without work. As "capability" hires, you come into the firm without work. It's your responsibility to apply to two jobs per day, and interview as much as possible. You are encouraged to apply to positions even if you only hit 35% of the basic qualifications. As a developer, you are also required to perform technical interviews, mostly whiteboard or technical algorithm solving. Imagine this, you wear your suit and tie to the BAH interview, you get the job and then you find out you don't actually have a job... but you have to apply to two jobs per day, the location might be 30 miles and hours of traffic to get to, and you might not even want it... on top of that, you have to interview AGAIN and AGAIN until you find something. If you are offered the position, and it's a "billable" project, you will be strongly encouraged to take it, even if you don't want to. The recruiters don't describe this to you during the interview process, even if you ask the right questions.