House of Lies , Geanie Beanie

His experience will depend on his group and boss. I'm in the tech field and know many who have worked for Booz. They were all extremely happy when they left. Taking vacation across the board seemed to be a hassle. Be warned, they do let go people who are benched for too long. You need to be very pro-active if you end up on the bench.

Agree with a previous poster that it's really hard to generalize WRT Booz. It's a huge company and every sector is run a little differently. I know people who love it and people who hate it. It's a million times better than my old employer and I can safely say that if I'm going to work in government consulting, this is where I would do it. Yes, it's pretty easy to lose your job. I've hit the bench three times, but I'm still here. It takes a lot of hustle and luck to stick around. But the compensation is good and if you can manage to carve out a solid niche and network for yourself, you can do quite well in the long-term. But government consulting sucks overall. Use it as a stepping stone to something better and more secure. As soon as both kids are in PK, I'm out.

The problem with these big companies, in my experience, is that you are constantly in danger of being laid off if your project stalls or is canceled or the company doesn't win the bid and the project goes bye bye. At that point you are on overhead, meaning you aren't being paid out of a project's budget but the company's, and that's bad news. They really will only carry you on overhead 6-8 weeks. A good manager can help find another project to stick you on but you might be left scrambling to find another job. This happened to my husband not with Booz but with a competitor- he worked on a project for months and then the government decided to postpone the decision to award the contract for another year. He was warned he would need to get out or risk getting laid off because he couldn't be on overhead for a year. He did but it was stressful. And the same deal at the next company- if your division isn't winning contracts, they are quick to start cutting. It is really stressful to constantly worry about a lay off even as you're putting in tons of hours and doing good work. Just the nature of those companies though- every person is expendable at that level.

The good news is, he can leverage the position into jumping up and after a few years hopefully landing a director or VP position somewhere else. Long term at those contracting companies is hard to do these days though. You don't meet a whole lot of career guys who have been with the same company 25 years. He's going to have to job hop every 2-3 years to advance.

Yea... my best friend worked at Booz for a few years early in her career. She buddied up with her manager and had great performance and growth. Then they lost the contract she was working on and she had 2 weeks to find a new project in order to stay employed despite her amazing performance and reviews. She jumped ship shortly after.

I disagree about long hours. The person I knew there doing consulting hardly worked. Each paycheck he was scrambling to come up wjth billable hours. He worked from home and even at that was done by 4-5.

Anonymous wrote:I worked for the Intel Sector for 10 years, finally moved to a smaller company and couldn't be happy. Also, the whole "Booz is a great place for working families" is total BS.

It is definitely not "total BS," since it has in fact been great for my family. For various reasons, my wife would probably be a better fit in a slightly different field, but has stuck around Booz for years because it gives her an extraordinary amount of flexibility on hours and work location. I doubt she'll seriously consider leaving until the kids are much older.

OP - As you've probably already picked up on, it is going to be very tough to generalize from this thread to what DH's experience is going to be. I believe BAH is the second largest non-governmental employer in the DC area (behind McDonalds), so a lot of people have very different experiences, as this thread seems to demonstrate.

Anonymous wrote:That is the one company I would never work for. Low pay and a greening of the work force. Check out their lay off track record. All fine and good for the guy who's new and wet behind the ears, but there's no loyalty from the company.

Oh and if his program gets cut he better look fast for billable hours because they won't let you hang around at all on overhead. So many people there scrambling for billable work.

And why are you going to law school given the employment environment for lawyers now a days? Hopefully you have rich parents who are footing the bills on that.

This is part of why it feels more like a bodyshop instead of a consulting firm.

I'm with a different but similar firm, know a bit about Booz as I interviewed there years ago.

They have a lot of federal clients so the little-to-no-travel thing could be plausible. And telecommuting I heard is fine there, it is very accepted at my firm and I do it regularly.

Sounds like he will be consulting, but for all who are stereotyping, not everyone who works for a big consulting firm....consults. I mean that is their bread and butter but like every place, they also need people running the business and not just working for clients.

Since having kids I no longer work with clients. Middle management, decent pay, great benefits and I like the flexibility. But I'd never go back to the client side.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the (mixed) reviews. DH has been told not to expect much travel. So I'm confused about the "hotelling". No personal workspace for people who work at the place everyday (in this case, the DC office)?

Not much travel...hahahahahahahaha

Well the client is in DC so this sounded plausible. Besides the hotelling (that I still dont understand), several pps seem to suggest that Booz is a starter job or step to something else rather than a career? Can anyone enlighten me on either or both? Thanks.

One of my best friends (2 small kids) works there and has for about 8 years, definitely mid-career and up not a "starter" position. Her client is a Fed agency so she never really travels for work and does a lot of teleworking but I have no idea if this is the norm.

Ugh I know someone who worked there and was miserable. Then again they complain a lot so who knows.

Hoteling means you have to rent a cube when you want to go into the office rather than client site.

Ugh I know someone who worked there and was miserable. Then again they complain a lot so who knows.

OP, I am assuming he'll be working in the Gov't related sector (Intelligence or otherwise)? If so, then you won't have a lot of travel, just customers who come up with crazy ideas and will want you to "do magic."

I worked for the Intel Sector for 10 years, finally moved to a smaller company and couldn't be happy. Also, the whole "Booz is a great place for working families" is total BS.

One word - SNOWDEN!

That is the one company I would never work for. Low pay and a greening of the work force. Check out their lay off track record. All fine and good for the guy who's new and wet behind the ears, but there's no loyalty from the company.

Oh and if his program gets cut he better look fast for billable hours because they won't let you hang around at all on overhead. So many people there scrambling for billable work.

And why are you going to law school given the employment environment for lawyers now a days? Hopefully you have rich parents who are footing the bills on that.