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Best Companies rank: 52
Number of job openings*: 1,046

Advice from Judy Merkel, senior director of recruiting

You are doing a lot of hiring right now?
Oh, yes. Last year we hired over 5,000 people, and we expect to hire another 5,000 this year. Usually consulting firms rely heavily on campus recruiting, but new college grads make up only about 10% of our new hires. We look for business experience and for people transitioning out of the military.

What are you looking for?
Well, technical and management qualifications of course, but beyond that, we want brains but also a heart. We want people who care about each other and will dig in and make their client's mission their own mission. We also do a lot of community outreach, so we look for a volunteer and community service background.

Is there anything unusual about the interview process at Booz Allen?
We do different kinds of interviews with different candidates. Some of our teams do panel interviews with campus recruits. But mostly we do pretty thorough behavioral interviewing, where we delve into your past work life and look for examples of how you handled different situations. You might be interviewed by 3, 4 or 5 people, each focusing on a specific skill set or area of expertise. Our best source of new hires is our employee referral program, which is where we get about 50% of our new hires.

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