Some Important Positives, But Questionable Direction And Dysfunctional Management
Pros
-There are some really great and talented people who work there and I suspect they're attracted by the Booz Allen brand. - The benefits were very solid, particularly the ECAP, although I've heard this has changed since I left about two months ago and the ECAP is no longer around. - The online resources for training are outstanding and very accessible. The best I've seen at any employer so far. If anyone says that they weren't able to get training at Booz Allen, they simply weren't trying.
Cons
- While people are attracted to Booz Allen because of the brand (as I was), that brand is in sharp decline. As has been mentioned repeatedly, the company went public a few years ago and they're owned by a private equity group that demands quarterly returns that Booz Allen just isn't able to meet considering that sequestration and cuts are now hitting their biggest client. As a result, benefits are being curtailed, the company is not hiring people who want market level wages (I had three highly qualified people I recommended dropped from consideration because they wanted equivalent salaries to what they made elsewhere) and pay increases and promotions have dried up. The company is also putting a premium on finding new business over delivering quality results to the client. This will eventually ruin this company and its brand. - The assessment process and career development are a joke because your entire career development is bottlenecked through one person...your career manager. If he likes you, you're golden (unless he doesn't know how to write an assessment). If he doesn't like you, it doesn't matter if your peers, other supervisors, the clients and everyone else love you and write stellar feedback for you...your career is toast unless you can change career managers. This is particularly noticeable on client sites, where your team lead and career manager could end up being the same person. In many locations there's not enough outside involvement to gain perspective, so you are whatever your career manager says you are. You can get around this by finding a mentor (who is actually more of a patron) but don't expect help from anyone but HR in finding one if you're on client site(the Senior and Lead Associates in my chain were of no help). Most people on client site appear so cut off that they have no more idea how to find a mentor than you do, unless they've been around a lot longer than you do (which most probably haven't been, as Booz Allen has had a lot of turnover recently). Basically, if you're considering a client site job with Booz Allen and, during the interview process, find yourself with any reservations at all about the people who will be either your career manager or team lead, you should walk away unless you can't find anything better...it probably won't work out well for you. - In line with the last cons, Booz Allen has put a premium on expansion over quality over the last few years. This has led to them putting people of questionable ability and temperament into positions of authority largely on the basis of them being in positions of leadership in the military (often hired by someone they worked with in the military). The project I was on suffered greatly from this as many of these leaders were completely inept at dealing with personnel who didn't have the ability to quit their jobs and go elsewhere if they were mistreated. This was the most common gripe I heard across my project from different client sites...incompetent, self-serving leaders who had no idea how to develop or even retain personnel or how to manage client relationships. This led to a high attrition rate.