BusinessWeek Again Honors Booz Allen as One of the Best Places to Launch a Career

For the third year in a row, the firm is lauded for its success in assimilating new staff and supporting their professional and personal goals.

Booz Allen Hamilton has been named one of the “Best Places to Launch a Career” by BusinessWeek magazine for the third consecutive year.

“Booz Allen gets a great deal of recognition as a best place to work, and it’s important to work for a firm with this reputation in the industry,” says Booz Allen vice president Betty Thompson. “Not only does the firm have a proven track record for success, but we’re all about our people. We want the experience of working here to be rewarding.”

Again in 2008, as in previous years, the firm received awards from many organizations for its outstanding work environment, including recognition from FORTUNE as a Best Company to Work For; the Washington Post as one of the Top 200 Local Private Companies; Working Mother in its 100 Best Company Ranking; and Computerworld as a Best Place to Work for Information Technology.

Booz Allen was also named—for the second time—as a Top 100 Government IT Contractor, and the firm’s offices in Honolulu, San Antonio, and Huntsville, Alabama were honored as Best Places to Work in 2008.

BusinessWeek ranked 119 top companies in 2008, based on feedback from three separate sources: A poll that the magazine conducted of career services directors at U.S. colleges; a survey of 40,000 college students conducted by the Philadelphia research company, Universum USA; and a BusinessWeek poll of the employers themselves.

Five key factors contribute to Booz Allen’s reputation as an excellent place at which to launch a career:

• Exceptional people – New employees work with talented people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
• Core values – Each employee embodies Booz Allen’s core values—client service, excellence, diversity, entrepreneurship, teamwork, professionalism, fairness, integrity, respect, and trust—in all of his or her work.
• Variety of work and its impact – Booz Allen staff work with top clients in the government and industry that are involved in projects supporting security, health, and the overall well-being of the nation.
• Commitment to personal and professional growth – The firm’s management supports the development of each individual and provides opportunities for employees to grow as the firm grows.
• A prosperous, stable business environment – Booz Allen has logged years of double-digit growth, which translates into enormous growth opportunities for the staff.

The “Best Places” rankings appear in BusinessWeek’s September 15, 2008 issue.

“Employers that Really Shine”

When hiring, Booz Allen looks for smart people who are passionate about their work, enjoy working with others, and are willing to work hard for the client. “We want to hire individuals who are results-focused and good listeners, so they can tailor solutions to client needs,” Thompson says. “They must also have tenacity so they can work through details for the client while keeping the big picture in mind.

“We mentor new hires for success and provide many avenues to make their assimilation into the firm easy, orderly, and accountable,” she adds. “Our Junior Exempt Employee Forum allows less experienced staff to learn from their peers. We also provide award-winning training programs, tuition assistance, executive courses, and online courses that cover topics from technology to balancing work/life. Junior-level employees interact often with senior people at the firm. We also partner with universities so our employees can stay connected to their schools and participate in recruiting events.”

New hires create individual career development programs with their managers. They are evaluated after six months and again after one year to collect the feedback needed to guide both the employee and manager as to how the employee can meet her or his goals.

The firm considers many characteristics in new hires, but some of the most important are their analytical skills, communications skills, and the subjects in which they majored. At press time, over 3,000 individuals had applied for entry-level jobs at Booz Allen in 2008, and 185 had accepted paid internships. Over one-third of the eligible 2007 interns received full-time job offers, and 34% who received offers accepted.

The “Best Places to Launch a Career” issue is BusinessWeek’s annual guide to “the employers that really shine.” The magazine added 24 new employers to its list in 2008, and surveyed them about their hiring, pay, benefits, training, retention, and more. Responses were compared with the responses of others in its industry and employers were awarded points for the “best” responses. The magazine also surveyed 263 college career directors and received information from Universum USA as to which employer undergrad students most want to work for.

story posted November 17, 2008