Take offer from Booz Allen Hamilton?
Hello All,
I read some other BAH related material on this website, but none of it was any help to me.
I'm looking for advice whether to accept an offer at BAH. I'm currently an engineer at a top 3 defense contractor and I want to move into the management/strategy consulting or investment banking world.
I have a BS in Aerospace Engineering with no business background from a non-target state school. I've been out of school for about 2.5 yrs now and really want to leave the company I'm at now.
I know my goal is going to be difficult to achieve without a business background, but I wanted to at least shimmy towards the goal by getting into a company that calls itself a consulting company.
My big question is I'm not sure what good this will do for me. They gave a decent offer, and it's a pro that I would be moving to a big CA city and leave a boring urban-type city that defense is generally based out of, but it just seems like the same thing I am doing over again. They say my title would be Sr. Consultant, but it sounded like the work I would be doing would really be that of a contractor.
But I'm willing to bite the bullet for a year or so and then see what kind of opportunities I have internally moving into a role closer to my goal.
And if management/strategy consulting is out of the question, I would go get my MBA to better align myself and hit the reset button so to speak. In the end I want to work in private sector management/strategy consulting or investment banking and I don't want to stay in the defense/public sector.
Do you think this move will help me reach my end goal? Will it help get into a top 10 MBA program if I have BAH and a top 3 defense contractor on my resume, and assuming my gmat score is solid? What are your opinions/suggestions regarding the exit opps that I want?
I would say take the offer.
It sounds like you're pretty bored with your current work, so it's not like you're giving up a whole lot anyway. Plus, I've heard the work BAH does in San Diego can be pretty interesting for the right kind of people.
Now, to delve deeper into your overall career question, I'd say you're correct in your feeling that this will not be a strategy consulting role. Despite your Sr. Consultant title, you will essentially be a contractor. BAH does have a General Management Consulting track for people based in D.C., but that practice is losing priority as the new CEO shifts his focus entirely on contracting-type engagements. I know this because last summer I was an intern at BAH interested in strategy consulting myself, and I had the opportunity to ask the CEO if he saw the strategy consulting FSO as part of the future of BAH. He answered definitively that BAH is shifting toward more of a data science delivery/implementation and contracting firm, so no strategy consulting will not be important to their future.
That said, the firm still has a great reputation among consulting firms, investment banks, and business schools due to its history as a management consulting leader. This brand value is the main thing BAH has going for it if you're interested in strategy consulting, because it will definitely open doors and help you land interviews in strategy consulting. For example, I'll be interning at one of MBB this summer and during my interview they told me my BAH experience was impressive.
To summarize, I think your best bet is to take the BAH offer to capitalize on the brand name and use the firm as a stepping stone into more traditional strategy consulting. With 1-2 years of BAH experience on your resume, I think your chances at getting into a top consulting firm, bank, or business school will be increased.
Thank you for the reply. Looking at your post history, it seems like you did intern work in their Strategy & Innovation Group and have a business related field from undergrad. I'd be coming in BAH a bit differently. Even with my engineering background they will hire me on as "Sr Consultant," but the requisition I got headhunted for is called "Systems Engineer."
Can you speak to internal movement at BAH? I would hope that I can make moves to avoid getting pigeonholed into an engineering role, and ideally move into more traditional consulting/advisory roles in a year or so to the EC. This way I can be closer to target schools, look into their MBA programs, piggy back their recruitment events, etc. Additionally, I'm actually being considered for both the SD office and the LA one. It's just that the LA one is the one that has made the offer at this point. They straight up told me that's a more technical/smaller office with longer projects/contracts, which is why I was lead to believe it's essentially contracting work. Do you know anything regarding the latter office?
BAH has hierarchal titles and functional titles. Your hierarchal title (consultant, sr consultant, associate, etc.) determines your pay and level of responsibility while your functional title determines what your job is. The hierarchal titles are universal regardless of whether you are in strategy, engineering, HR, etc.
I honestly don't know much about transferring roles, but I got the sense it's not super easy.
With regards to LA vs. SD, I know that practically all the work they do in SD is focused the Navy since there's huge base there. I talked to one woman who worked in SD for 15 years and loved that type of work. As for LA, I have no idea.
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