Barclays Capital Reviews

Pros

Good internal promotion opportunities. Competitive salary

Cons

Very institutionalised and lack of communiation

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employees

Pros

Good structure; nice hr; good exposure

Cons

not very involving in daily jobs, maybe due to seperating from the team

Advice to Senior Management

bureaucracy quite significant

Pros

Great leadership at the top and the bank is going places.
Great culture, people are approachable even at senior levels.

Cons

Meritocracy is a double-edged sword.
Many operations and systems are still not mature; but it also means opportunity for improvement.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the strong governance and discipline; keep communicating with staff; maintain the strong leadership!
Careful not to drive efficiencies simply through cost reduction but rather identify and minimise duplication and inefficient operations.

Pros

Barclays Capital has a very planned-out internship program where they promote networking, getting involved, learning about the business, and expanding your knowledge base. There are many activities that get you involved with the company and the people. It is a fast-paced environment where you are always learning. The training program is very good as well.

Cons

Software support and requests are slow. Your experience may vary based on the group that you are placed into. Whether you will be working long hours or a typical 9 to 5 all depends on the type of manager/team you have. The type of work you do also vary from team-to-team. Some teams are less engaging than others.

Advice to Senior Management

Give the Technology Division more recognition for their work. They are the backbone of the company.

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.