Unchallenging, Stifling, and Bureaucratic - Senior Consultant Booz Allen Hamilton Employee Review

Culture: BAH has a very conservative corporate culture, and this can mean that management and others are not straightforward - there is a lot of euphemism. When things go well, there is effusive praise and management engages in the best practice of calling it out. When things don't go well, no one will speak directly about it - and the words used are things like "opportunity" to make it sound positive. Bureaucratic Organization: Since BAH sells into the federal government, they are organized to reflect federal government mindset on talent and personnel, which is preoccupied with over-specialization, and an emphasis on experience over talent or potential. This means that success is not really measured by results, but by what certifications one can say they have and what training courses you can put on your transcript. The focus on specialization further means that it is nearly impossible to move laterally - even as a low level employee. Entry level consultants are immediately branded and pigeon-holed with a particular specialty and market. Bid Strategy: BAH has grown immensely fast over the last 20 years (until recently). To capture all this business, they have hired aggressively and moved into ever more areas of federal government business where at scale, they can generate profits. This means, though, that Booz is now engaged in mostly contracts that are long-range and don't involve very high-level, strategic, or challenging work. In this sense, they are putting butts in seats, rather than hiring the best and brightest and moving them around to challenging assignments. Honestly, none of the people I knew at BAH who were impressive, smart, or effective stayed for much more than a year and a half. Its not a world class consulting company, its a well-reputed government contracting behemoth.