BAH--A Company in Decline - Program Manager Booz Allen Hamilton Employee Review

Booz Allen is no longer an elite consulting firm. Breaking off the elite commercial practice in 2008 (Booz & Company--which has since re-branded as Strategy& and is now part of PwC) left Booz Allen Hamilton with a large public sector practice that provided most of its support to the Federal government. The firm bet big on its disastrous "Take Share" hiring policy back in 2010 which led to a deep bench of available staff. When anticipated work did not materialize to the levels projected, it resulted in a lack of work situation and literally thousands of employees at all levels up to partner were let go from 2011-2014. The company went public in that same time frame (late 2011) and had to pull a lot of cost-cutting levers to project itself as a profitable company to investors. Losing a lot of re-competed work to small businesses and the government's spending cutbacks due to Sequestration all contributed to BAH going from a company 26K+ employees to under 20K at its recent low. Growth projections had the firm at topping 30K employees, so the company was way below the targets the C-suite Partners had set back then. These days, new talent is hired in at starting salaries less than the firm offered at the same level a decade ago. Job security is very uncertain even if you are on a billable task. Management will move a higher salaried worker off of a task to be replaced by a lower paid new hire. Workers in a lack of billable work situation are generally let go within 2 weeks to 2 months depending on tenure. Promotions are very hard to come by and annual raises are anemic due to the firm's strong culture of holding down costs. The firm is no longer at, or near, the top of the list for advanced degree professionals who are truly interested in being a consultant. Deloitte is a much better option for someone who wants to do this type of work in the federal space and work for a large well-known company.