Barclays Capital Reviews

Pros

Great firm to have on the CV
Smart people who generally work well together
Relaxed and informal compared to other bulge bracket

Cons

Weak middle management often struggles to make real decisions
Dont rock the boat culture
Questionable what the real strategy is from here
Appraisal and promotions system regularly criticised by staff

Advice to Senior Management

Growth and profitability targets dont equate to a strategy - engage with producers and work one up.

Pros

ok benefits
start to see some diversity

Cons

poor interdepartmental teamwork
lack of communications amongst groups

Pros

Great when they were smaller.

Cons

Terrible after continuous growth over the years. Can not get anything done without London dictating everything.

Advice to Senior Management

Good to flush out some old timers. Carry out work life balance review as money is not everything. Feels like one of the pig in a massive farm as a place to work in.

Pros

paid maternity leave, decent benefits and 401k

Cons

there is no work life balance.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your people

Pros

The working environment is very amicable with lots of seniors willing to teach you whenever you are in need. Smart people all around

Cons

The presence of Barclays in Asia is still relatively small, compared to its European and U.S. operations. Getting clients to know the brand is not as easy as if you were in a local bank

Pros

Great people, who are by and large motivated and seeking excellence. Also, Bob Diamond's "no jerk policy" seems to be taken very seriously with Barclays legacy employees as well as former Lehman ones.

Cons

Constructive criticism was not really present. Over an extensive review period, I learned very little about what areas I needed to improve on.

Advice to Senior Management

Give better, well-thought criticism to interns. The room to grow was limited because of this lack of communication and carelessness in the review process.

Pros

Great people
Good work life balance (at least in back office operations)
Great name to have on your resume

Cons

The work (in backoffce) was unsatisfying and highly repetitive
No real training

Advice to Senior Management

I'd like to see better training for entry-level analysts

Pros

Work/life balance is good - they are flexible about allowing you to take time off for personal matters.
Benefits is comparable to other big banks

Cons

Absolutely horrible place for career advancement. Clubby, with a select few keeping the bonuses and promotions to themselves.
Try to get what money you can when you join, because you forget about getting a dime more afterwards.
High turnover. High level of dissatisfaction among employees. I had worked at other banks, and have never experienced such frustration among fellow employees.

Advice to Senior Management

They have heard it often but they just dont care

Pros

prestigious firm, looks great on a resume wherever you go next, highly visible transaction work and unique interesting clients/projects to work on

Cons

management for the team I was on was not communicative to employees and VERY cliquish with a few team members, my team required on call 24/7, passively discouraged vacation, bonus compensation given the hours is borderline offensive, salaries are finally close to market but bonuses are definitely below market esp for analyst/assoc

Advice to Senior Management

you've got to pay to keep good people

Pros

Meritocracy and ability to take initiative to develop you skills, take on new initiatives

Cons

Compensation is low compared to competitors, lack of support for internal mobility, infrastructure systems and data management is very poor and manual

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in better data management and support internal growth