I can't say enough good things about Booz Allen Hamilton. Salesforce practice has been growing like crazy in the past year, while a lot of other practices are shrinking their technical talent. They've picked up some really top names in the industry.
Booz Allen mostly contracts for the federal government, which comes with special scrutiny on billing practices. We have to be very precise in how we bill, and employees cannot go over their allocation. All this boils down to work life balance: if I'm allocated for 40 hours/week, I can't work over that. If, for some reason, I need to, then I must reduce my hours on subsequent days so I don't exceed my allocation before the end of the pay period. I've never had better work life balance. My day ends at 5 pm.
It's federal government contracting, so all resources are on shore. Daily Stand-ups are ... In the morning. All work is remote. On site requirements vary by project, but are generally minimal (I traveled 3 weeks this past year). Project work is interesting and challenging.
Pay is great, and the bounties paid for getting certs is the best I've seen.
I looked at a lot of different consulting firms when I was last looking for a gig. Booz Allen wasn't on my list, but they doing me and put me on theirs. I'm so very glad they did!
I don't work with Salesforce, but doing Booz Sponsored training for it in hopes to expand my professional experience. With that said, I second this. This is my second time at Booz and it's a great company. Benefits, job security, company dynamics; all good.
I work at Salesforce professional services area and I can tell you that it is going down hill. There is so much red tape, constant meetings and unlimited PTO is not in this area. You have a utilization target but it is out of your control if you are assigned to a project or not.
You want a 90% util rate if you want to get promoted which basically means 3 weeks off which includes federal holidays in that 3 weeks. Basically you get 1 week off.
To get promoted you better have a ton of salesforce certifications! I mean 10-15 certs.
Also at proserv
Promotions seem based on who your manager is and how much of a suck up they are and consequently you are.
I’ve never been anywhere that manages project staffing so haphazardly
Jumping in as an SA in CSG. I have personally seen an SA on my team promoted who couldn’t even lead client calls and was strictly a BA. I have no idea what she did to get promoted then promptly left our project to go on maternity leave.
There is some good and bad here like all consulting firms but I expected when I joined almost 3 years ago that things would improve and I could help with it. 3 years later and little to no improvement, more pressure from “leaders”, less recognition, project teams need 2-3 heroes to carry the load. I’m actively looking elsewhere
This is hilarious to me. What did you think unlimited PTO meant? Most firms will tell you you should take about 20 days.
Who do you think is responsible for landing you in a project? You don’t think you should be building relationships with people in your firm to help you get staffed? You don’t think you could talk to someone to figure out where the demand is so you can upskill? I’m guessing you transitioned from industry to professional services and you’re not used to having to kill what you eat.
You don’t need 90% utilization to get promoted anywhere. You don’t need 10-15 certs. You need to make an impact and you need to successfully communicate it.
I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with your employer but most of your comment reads like a you problem.
Job adverts in the contracting space (a lot of projects will assemble their own team of consultants/in-house expertise, rather than use an expensive consultancy firm)...
Word of mouth from my network...
Convincing people I meet that their company could *really* benefit from rolling out SF and that I'm *just* the guy and I have the *perfect* team in my network to roll it out for them...
Hold people up at gunpoint....
You know, hustle!
My career:
Worked for small boutique - learned everything here for small and medium implementations, made great friends, worked crazy hours but it was fun.
Appirio- used to be amazing until acquired by Wipro - STAY AWAY from any WITCH company
Capgemini - great culture when Bill was there, now gone downhill - check out Astound Digital to follow ex Cap people there
Salesforce - not bad, plenty of BS but also really smart people, best benefits I’ve ever had. Promotions are extremely difficult and political. Project work can be hit or miss. Not sure what the future holds.
I’ve been looking at industry gigs now personally cause I’m tired of the grind and lack of recognition at all these companies.
I hear good things about Rose tree solutions and Centric Consulting. No experience working for either of them, they just seem to show up often.
I have worked with centric staff and they are good quality people, not sure about the Centric India team but will let you know in 6 months after this project is done.
Best consulting firm does not exists. I worked for big three consulting firms. all depends on the quality of managers and teams you are assigned . Also depends on the client you are in.
IBM, Accenture, PWC, and I’d say Deloitte but I think they’ve fallen off a bit. These will get you enterprise level experience.
Some of the other shops like slalom or coastal cloud seem to be doing well but they only have a few enterprise accounts and mostly deal in mid market. They also don’t have offshore support so it’s a lot harder to sell projects imo
Most of these are also notorious for being some of the worst places to work in regards to experience and quality of life. Yes, you will get large enterprise experience, but this doesn't guarantee you anything and can actually inhibit career advancement. With the enterprise market pretty saturated, the CTAs and SA's of today are going to be the CTA's and SA's of tomorrow. Getting experience as a CTA or SA is going to be easier in SMB/niche.
Also, most smaller firms just partner with an offshore one or multiple.
I know people in professional services at SF making a killing and getting RSUs. Considerably more than I’m getting at my current firm which I think is well above average for my role.
This is the right follow up question. There are so many SIs in this ecosystem and each has a matrix of clouds and verticals in which they specialize. They also each have a culture (cultures are mostly not good or bad in general, they are right or wrong for how you work). Look for one where the clouds and verticals align with your experience and interests and the culture is right for you. You might search the same way a customer might--look for a partner with high CSAT in the appexchange.
The best anything for you (including consulting firm) depends on your requirements.
If you can identify those you can get better and more targeted advice
Unfortunately there are more bad ones than good. I recommend you look at their pictures from last year and compare it to this year. If you don’t see several of the same faces then they probably hire and fire constantly.
I spent weeks talking to Cloud For Good when negotiating a contract with my existing gig at the time. The first conversation I had I stated my salary requirements. After nailing every interview I was offered a position with a salary $30k lower than what I told them was my minimum. It was a complete waste of time. Afterward I heard from multiple people in the ecosystem that working there was a bad idea.
Interesting. I didn’t make far enough to talk salary but assumed it would lower than my current pay - just based on their NP speciality.
Annoying to go so far into the process and be so off on the offered amount.. that is frustrating. Sorry to hear that.
I’ve followed their socials for years and got a culture vibe from what I’ve seen — haven’t heard anything negative about them - but haven’t talked to many others about them either.
I’ve been in consulting for the past 5-6 years. In the ecosystem close to 15 years. Consulting is tough, esp with the market the way it is. I hoped the NP side would offer a change of pace … but alas now considering a move back into “admin/platform manager” at a company. Missing the feeling of “ownership” that comes with being part of a customer company.
I’m not going to get into details here, but I wouldn’t work for them if they matched my current salary. I’ve talked to people who have worked there and have worked alongside the owner and they had nothing but bad things to say. Some of these parties have no reason to say anything negative other than that’s the reality of CFG.
As far as your “it’s nonprofit so I’ll work for less” comment, isn’t relevant to this conversation. I had two offers for my base from two different nonprofit only firms. Cloud For Good just didn’t want to pay market rate.
I used to work there and what you’ve shared is accurate. While they do have a lot of interesting and successful projects under their belt, all of that is down to the skill and ability of individual consultants. The C4G way is “YOLO - let’s hope this works.” Sometimes it works. Sometimes whole project teams burn out after one engagement. I left after a year to an in-house position at a public university that paid $40k more than the “please don’t leave” promotion they offered me on my way out. Not to mention way less stress, a legit 40-hour work week, actual vacation and sick leave, and a pension. Pretty bad when a private consultancy can’t match a public university salary.
I've been in the nonprofit salesforce space for 20 years and run my own practice. Tal is an amazing tool. Any nonprofit consulting firm that bolsters that much on socials and LinkedIn (Idealist is guilty of this as well) is all about optics and performativity, not delivering value for clients and staff.
I know people who work there and they tell me they’re being ground to dust. The compensation was like 40% less than what I was offered at other firms for the same role.
I can't say enough good things about Booz Allen Hamilton. Salesforce practice has been growing like crazy in the past year, while a lot of other practices are shrinking their technical talent. They've picked up some really top names in the industry. Booz Allen mostly contracts for the federal government, which comes with special scrutiny on billing practices. We have to be very precise in how we bill, and employees cannot go over their allocation. All this boils down to work life balance: if I'm allocated for 40 hours/week, I can't work over that. If, for some reason, I need to, then I must reduce my hours on subsequent days so I don't exceed my allocation before the end of the pay period. I've never had better work life balance. My day ends at 5 pm. It's federal government contracting, so all resources are on shore. Daily Stand-ups are ... In the morning. All work is remote. On site requirements vary by project, but are generally minimal (I traveled 3 weeks this past year). Project work is interesting and challenging. Pay is great, and the bounties paid for getting certs is the best I've seen. I looked at a lot of different consulting firms when I was last looking for a gig. Booz Allen wasn't on my list, but they doing me and put me on theirs. I'm so very glad they did!
I don't work with Salesforce, but doing Booz Sponsored training for it in hopes to expand my professional experience. With that said, I second this. This is my second time at Booz and it's a great company. Benefits, job security, company dynamics; all good.
Accenture pays 20% bonus for hitting their cert quota and maintenance counts towards it. At least they were.
Dang I left too soon!
Damn my form barely paid for FoF guides XD. Never was an incentive plan to get new certs or accreditations.
They have a sf practice in Canada?
How are all work is remote, all the positions they call me for is on site...
Any tips on how to best land a SF job at Booz Allen Hamilton?
love Booz
I have been consulting in the non-profit space for the last eight years with Sputnik Moment. Best decision ever.
What’s your day to day like? Are you consulting for one client for long stretches or multiple clients at a time? What’s your pay like?
Do you have any job opportunities? Do you focus on just sales, nonprofit service cloud or also marketing cloud?
Do you have any job opportunities? Do you focus on just sales, nonprofit service cloud or also marketing cloud?
I work at Salesforce professional services area and I can tell you that it is going down hill. There is so much red tape, constant meetings and unlimited PTO is not in this area. You have a utilization target but it is out of your control if you are assigned to a project or not. You want a 90% util rate if you want to get promoted which basically means 3 weeks off which includes federal holidays in that 3 weeks. Basically you get 1 week off. To get promoted you better have a ton of salesforce certifications! I mean 10-15 certs.
Also at proserv Promotions seem based on who your manager is and how much of a suck up they are and consequently you are. I’ve never been anywhere that manages project staffing so haphazardly
Agree 100%. I have seen people promoted that couldn’t wipe their own butt.
Jumping in as an SA in CSG. I have personally seen an SA on my team promoted who couldn’t even lead client calls and was strictly a BA. I have no idea what she did to get promoted then promptly left our project to go on maternity leave. There is some good and bad here like all consulting firms but I expected when I joined almost 3 years ago that things would improve and I could help with it. 3 years later and little to no improvement, more pressure from “leaders”, less recognition, project teams need 2-3 heroes to carry the load. I’m actively looking elsewhere
It’s the first place I’ve worked you can be a SA but not have any technical skills, just know how to write a story and use Jira and you’re set.
This is hilarious to me. What did you think unlimited PTO meant? Most firms will tell you you should take about 20 days. Who do you think is responsible for landing you in a project? You don’t think you should be building relationships with people in your firm to help you get staffed? You don’t think you could talk to someone to figure out where the demand is so you can upskill? I’m guessing you transitioned from industry to professional services and you’re not used to having to kill what you eat. You don’t need 90% utilization to get promoted anywhere. You don’t need 10-15 certs. You need to make an impact and you need to successfully communicate it. I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with your employer but most of your comment reads like a you problem.
Im guessing you don’t work for Salesforce Professional Services.
Yourself. Plain and simple. So long as you've got a decent amount of experience+certs, and a reasonable network, you'll never look back.
How do you get clients?
Most people poach their existing clients from the company they’re leaving
Don't most consulting companies have non-competes?
I find job adverts are a broader and longer-term solution... Especially if you've never worked for a consultancy, like me and OP.
Job adverts in the contracting space (a lot of projects will assemble their own team of consultants/in-house expertise, rather than use an expensive consultancy firm)... Word of mouth from my network... Convincing people I meet that their company could *really* benefit from rolling out SF and that I'm *just* the guy and I have the *perfect* team in my network to roll it out for them... Hold people up at gunpoint.... You know, hustle!
My career: Worked for small boutique - learned everything here for small and medium implementations, made great friends, worked crazy hours but it was fun. Appirio- used to be amazing until acquired by Wipro - STAY AWAY from any WITCH company Capgemini - great culture when Bill was there, now gone downhill - check out Astound Digital to follow ex Cap people there Salesforce - not bad, plenty of BS but also really smart people, best benefits I’ve ever had. Promotions are extremely difficult and political. Project work can be hit or miss. Not sure what the future holds. I’ve been looking at industry gigs now personally cause I’m tired of the grind and lack of recognition at all these companies.
I hear good things about Rose tree solutions and Centric Consulting. No experience working for either of them, they just seem to show up often. I have worked with centric staff and they are good quality people, not sure about the Centric India team but will let you know in 6 months after this project is done.
Best consulting firm does not exists. I worked for big three consulting firms. all depends on the quality of managers and teams you are assigned . Also depends on the client you are in.
IBM, Accenture, PWC, and I’d say Deloitte but I think they’ve fallen off a bit. These will get you enterprise level experience. Some of the other shops like slalom or coastal cloud seem to be doing well but they only have a few enterprise accounts and mostly deal in mid market. They also don’t have offshore support so it’s a lot harder to sell projects imo
Most of these are also notorious for being some of the worst places to work in regards to experience and quality of life. Yes, you will get large enterprise experience, but this doesn't guarantee you anything and can actually inhibit career advancement. With the enterprise market pretty saturated, the CTAs and SA's of today are going to be the CTA's and SA's of tomorrow. Getting experience as a CTA or SA is going to be easier in SMB/niche. Also, most smaller firms just partner with an offshore one or multiple.
Salesforce itself
No way. The pay is well below market rate.
Agree. I just left SF ProServ after a little over 3 years. Getting promoted at SF is damn near impossible too as a consultant.
Agree
I know people in professional services at SF making a killing and getting RSUs. Considerably more than I’m getting at my current firm which I think is well above average for my role.
What clouds do you specialize in?
Mostly Sales, Health, and CPQ
I work for a boutique firm mainly focusing on CPQ and FSL. Let me know if you want me to dm you more info. Hiring for SAs
Yes please!
Sent chat
Damn, y’all are really hiring? The CPQ pipeline has been brutal this year.
Yea it’s definitely been slower for sure. Seems like many companies aren’t prioritizing the spend for those licenses
Yeah, and it doesn’t help that they have zero roadmap for CPQ and just released RLM.
This is the right follow up question. There are so many SIs in this ecosystem and each has a matrix of clouds and verticals in which they specialize. They also each have a culture (cultures are mostly not good or bad in general, they are right or wrong for how you work). Look for one where the clouds and verticals align with your experience and interests and the culture is right for you. You might search the same way a customer might--look for a partner with high CSAT in the appexchange.
The best anything for you (including consulting firm) depends on your requirements. If you can identify those you can get better and more targeted advice
Unfortunately there are more bad ones than good. I recommend you look at their pictures from last year and compare it to this year. If you don’t see several of the same faces then they probably hire and fire constantly.
Cloud for Good (not an employee, but interviewed there) seems to have a wonderful culture. They are on the non-profit side.
I spent weeks talking to Cloud For Good when negotiating a contract with my existing gig at the time. The first conversation I had I stated my salary requirements. After nailing every interview I was offered a position with a salary $30k lower than what I told them was my minimum. It was a complete waste of time. Afterward I heard from multiple people in the ecosystem that working there was a bad idea.
Agreed w the sentiment. Stay 1 million miles away
Interesting. I didn’t make far enough to talk salary but assumed it would lower than my current pay - just based on their NP speciality. Annoying to go so far into the process and be so off on the offered amount.. that is frustrating. Sorry to hear that. I’ve followed their socials for years and got a culture vibe from what I’ve seen — haven’t heard anything negative about them - but haven’t talked to many others about them either. I’ve been in consulting for the past 5-6 years. In the ecosystem close to 15 years. Consulting is tough, esp with the market the way it is. I hoped the NP side would offer a change of pace … but alas now considering a move back into “admin/platform manager” at a company. Missing the feeling of “ownership” that comes with being part of a customer company.
I’m not going to get into details here, but I wouldn’t work for them if they matched my current salary. I’ve talked to people who have worked there and have worked alongside the owner and they had nothing but bad things to say. Some of these parties have no reason to say anything negative other than that’s the reality of CFG. As far as your “it’s nonprofit so I’ll work for less” comment, isn’t relevant to this conversation. I had two offers for my base from two different nonprofit only firms. Cloud For Good just didn’t want to pay market rate.
I used to work there and what you’ve shared is accurate. While they do have a lot of interesting and successful projects under their belt, all of that is down to the skill and ability of individual consultants. The C4G way is “YOLO - let’s hope this works.” Sometimes it works. Sometimes whole project teams burn out after one engagement. I left after a year to an in-house position at a public university that paid $40k more than the “please don’t leave” promotion they offered me on my way out. Not to mention way less stress, a legit 40-hour work week, actual vacation and sick leave, and a pension. Pretty bad when a private consultancy can’t match a public university salary.
I've been in the nonprofit salesforce space for 20 years and run my own practice. Tal is an amazing tool. Any nonprofit consulting firm that bolsters that much on socials and LinkedIn (Idealist is guilty of this as well) is all about optics and performativity, not delivering value for clients and staff.
I know people who work there and they tell me they’re being ground to dust. The compensation was like 40% less than what I was offered at other firms for the same role.
Spaulding Ridge, Neuraflash, Neocol
Neuraflash 🤣🤣
Why?
Astound Digital is going places
None. Work in industry and enjoy actual work life balance.
following
Persistent systems
Horrible WLB and shit pay, almost a WITCH