Pros
I sought a position with Booz|Allen|Hamilton after retiring from 40 years of federal service, principally in strategic communications. I had been a senior manager with such responsibilities as ghost writing for senior Defense Department officials and writing speeches. I possessed a Top Secret/SCI clearance and, at age 60 when I retired from the government, was not ready to stop working. I sought a position with BAH because it enjoyed an exceptional reputation and because I had been favorably impressed with the BAH contractors I crossed paths with during my federal service. There were a number of positions I interviewed for and I was ultimately hired to serve as a strategic communications associate on a BAH contract supporting the Defense Health Agency with its TRICARE medical health program for servicemembers and retirees and their dependents. I looked forward to sharing my experience with the members of the BAH team and assisting in the production of exceptional communications products for the client. As a new employee, everyone on the team was very welcoming and helped me through the onboarding process. The members of my team were some of the most intelligent, passionate, diverse and professional colleagues you could ever hope to work with.
Cons
Upper management is laser focused on everyone being 100 percent billable to ensure the kinds of profits they forecasted and promised to shareholders. If you are not bringing in "billable hours" you will receive a Lack of Work (LOW) letter and will be given 30 days to find a new contract or be let go. That made me feel that I was simply a revenue generator and NOT particularly valued. For all my experience, I found I was given rather mundane tasks to perform and that the work was not particularly challenging. Creativity in accomplishing tasks was not wanted or encouraged. Further, we were encouraged to NEVER give ideas to clients on how to better accomplish tasks or improve products and told simply to “do precisely what the client wants when he/she wants it.” The firm also expected that employees attend varied events during our off-work hours in addition to on-site client support. We were also frequently given additional work relating to growing new business for BAH that we were required to do in our leisure time away from supporting our clients. These tasks were frequently provided on short notice with extremely short deadlines for submission and most were definitely the equivalent of another full-time job. Rarely was I compensated for any time I spent working such business development support work. Often, too, the individual placed in charge of pulling the proposal or presentation together to pitch the new business was a young associate seeking a ticket to a promotion. If this individual thought you were being uncooperative or that your level of enthusiasm for the completion of the work was not what it should be, they didn’t hesitate to throw you under the bus with senior managers. These individuals, as well as your team client-support team colleagues, had input to your job performance evaluations. So one was obliged to always “put on a happy face” and do whatever one was asked to avoid negative assessments from coworkers and colleagues. Further, I found there was very little direction from management in how many tasks were to be performed. It's a lot of demanding to get things done without much direction, which is fine as far as avoiding micro-management. Perhaps because of my years of experience my colleagues and managers felt they didn’t have to give me much direction, but most of the time I felt like I was out on an island figuring most things out by myself. Colleagues were so busy getting their assigned work done, and ensuring that they got their 42 billable work hours each week, that I didn’t want to bother them for help or direction on how to complete some tasks. This, as you might imagine, led to dissatisfaction with work and afraid to ask for help. Management is required to constantly be bringing in new business and they couldn’t be working business development if they were always answering “stupid questions” from subordinates or explaining to superiors why a particular employee wasn’t functioning at 100 percent. On my team, the team manager was located in another state. We held daily staff meetings by conference call and she would actually be on-site in the client support role only a couple of days each month. That wasn’t really a sufficient amount of time to get to know me very well or to know what my strengths were so that I could be given tasks appropriate to my experience. I was an 80 percent disabled veteran when I left military service. This required that I have numerous appointments for health care for various medical issues, most frequently during work hours. I tried to schedule as many of the appointments during pre-work or after work hours, but that was not always possible. Paid time off with BAH is rare and there are NO DESIGNATED SICK DAYS. So, I found myself always in a running battle with both my client site manager and my career manager over my needs to take time off. I was lectured more than once about how my absences from the workplace demonstrated a “lack of concern” for the client and for BAH and that I should stop such absences IMMEDIATELY. So, needless to say, my career manager was on my case about this CONSTANTLY. While hiring me may have helped BAH reach some goals for hiring disabled workers or disabled veterans, they were not happy or supportive of the time I had to take off for medical appointments. The career manager is the person who has nearly complete control over your career path and can force you down a road you don’t like if they don’t like you. I’m afraid that was one lesson I learned the hard way at BAH. To stay 100 percent billable, I was never to be sitting at my desk waiting for someone to assign me work. If I was efficient with my time and completed tasks faster than was anticipated, I was expected to be eagerly seeking other work and the “right work.” There is a lack of passion, culture, and real leadership. There is a ton of management. The " Leadership" team dusts off core values and ethics a couple times a year but doesn't live these or demonstrate them on a daily basis. The "culture" of the firms seems to be manufactured - a lot of people pretending there is a meaningful culture. It's not that there is a negative culture, it's just that it's very bland, neutral and not at all aligned to what the firm says it is. Finally, I lost that TS/SCI clearance while working for BAH because I wasn’t engaged in work requiring such a clearance. BAH uses clearances to substitute for a National Agency Check and doesn’t assume custody of an employee’s clearance. Rather they allow unused clearances to “archive,” meaning an individual can lose their clearance because it is not being actively used.