Booz Allen Hamilton
Headquarters: McLean, VA
Locations: 98
Want to know what makes Booz Allen Hamilton such a great place to work? Ask one of the Comeback Kids — ex-employees who have returned to the fold.
"When you leave, you really understand how good the firm is and you come back," says Vaidyanathan Chandrashekhar, who is known to his colleagues as Chandy. In 1998, after nine years at the firm, Chandy, who had already made partner, bid his colleagues adieu. But by April 2004, after stints at A.T. Kearney and Goldman Sachs, he returned to the firm he grew up in.
Of the 1,300 people Booz Allen hired last year, 9 percent of them were Comeback Kids. "I tell people jokingly that I left the mother ship for some time just to come back home," says Chandy, who specializes in financial services and health insurance in the firm's World Technology Business practice. Currently, he is working with two senior principals who also have returned. "In consulting, people are in a time warp. They learn much faster, and there's the potential to actually work on difficult problems in a compressed time frame with the brightest people."
Reimbursement for training and education actually happen here, we are told. The firm was among the top five in which respondents were the most satisfied with the level of training received. In his time away, Chandy claims to have missed Booz Allen's "high ethics and special collegial culture." Many of his colleagues agree, saying that the firm has not only a team-oriented, consensus-driven culture, but also one that also rewards individual initiative. The firm, which ranked 8th overall in the culture category, "walks the Core Values talk," says a 35-year-old principal in California. "I never feel that company priorities take precedence or conflict with client-driven priorities." Some of Booz Allen's highest scores are in the work/life category. The 91-year-old firm offers a number of work/life benefits, including flexible work arrangements, vacation packages, and child care discounts, as well as child care and a fitness center onsite at headquarters in McLean, VA. This year, Booz Allen has added a number of other family programs. For example, it is now giving parents who adopt $5,000 per adopted child, in addition to the preexisting benefit of two weeks of paid leave.
Other programs are geared for the private-sector consultants who work in travel-intensive environments and haven't been able to take advantage of some of Booz Allen's offerings because of the nature of their jobs. They can take a leave without pay for up to 30 days, with a job guarantee and full benefits, and buy up to two additional weeks of vacation each year. Up-or-out is not as strong here. "Booz Allen is a place where someone who wants to make partner can, but if they are content with midlevel work, that is OK, too," says Margarite Zettervall, an IT strategy consultant. "Even at different stages of your life, the firm is supportive and will see you through any and all work/life issues."
Consultants consistently give the firm high marks for its 401(k) benefits — the firm contributes 10 percent to an employee's 401(k) regardless of how much the employee puts in — but say that it takes a very long time to get vested in the profit-sharing plan. "People are treated like the capital value of the firm that they truly are," says Jesse Newsom, a 43-year-old senior associate who joined the firm two years ago. "Most firms have core values, but this one includes core values as part of assessments. This firm has figured out that it is good business to treat consulting as a team sport."
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