Barclays Capital Reviews in New York, NY

Current Employee – been working at Barclays Capital full-time for more than a year

Pros – Average pay scale as per industry standards
Good learning experience

Cons – Slow growth
Little focus on employee career

Advice to Senior Management – Promote more people.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Barclays Capital as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Very intelligent people, decent pay, interesting work, people are very competitive and will push you to be your best. Although work can extend late in the evening or on the weekends, working in NYC you can always expect people to be out on the street (even at 2 am).

Cons – Long hours, standard day from 7:30 am until sometime after 11:30 pm, people can be very competitive (pro and con)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Barclays Capital as an intern for less than a year

Pros – salary is very good and decent

Cons – I have early meeting twice a week.

Advice to Senior Management – no advice

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Barclays Capital full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The London office is full of outstanding professionals, creative thinkers who all adopt a collaborative approach to resolving clients needs. There is no concept of pushing sales through, the bottom line in the London office is to serve the needs of clients.

Cons – The New York office, needs a lot of work. There is a consistent battle of client coverage and hard sales. Many people are unhappy and the environment is cut throat.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to mid senior level and junior staff members - there are many things that are being done in London that could easily be replicated to an extent in the New York Office. The success of Barclays in previous years has been attributed to the brilliant people, the New York office need not adopt hierarchy and cut-throat-ism to succeed. Understand the reasoning for turnover - there are many clues in the exit interviews that provide solutions to issues.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Barclays Capital full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Salaries, at least for legacy people, are competitive

Cons – Barclays has chosen not to be "exceptional" but to strive to lowest common denominator
Many groups have STRONG Lehman bias if senior management is from Lehman
Discontinuation of Pension plan remove any reason to be "loyal" considering Barcap is not doing anything to differentiate it from it's peers as a "special" place to work
IT is becoming "commoditized". Push to "outsource" IT work, even that with specialized finance knowledge and front office roles, to India under euphemism "Location Strategy".
Crazy requirement of 1 month notice for AVP and below and THREE MONTHS for VPs and above. Company is VERY aggressive in enforcing this.
Also, theoretically, this notice should go both ways, severance pay for those laid off incorporate this 3 month pay so in reality, company has its cake and can eat it too regarding holding you by the short hairs.
Internal mobility highly touted, but is a joke. Unless you know somebody, you will not get a reassignment via "official" channels. In fact, hiring managers most often don't even respond to internal mobility requests.
Most people have not had salary increase in 4 years and decreasing bonuses.
Forces grading curve is not fair for smaller groups and favoritism in these group make it impossible for "good" performers to advance unless they are a "golden" boy/girl.

Advice to Senior Management – You have become penny-wise and pound foolish. Wake up and look around. Policies encourage good people to leave and bad people to try and stay.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Barclays Capital full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Staff was great - smaller company resulted in closer relationships. People had lunch together or went out for drinks.

Cons – After Lehman bankruptcy purchase, staff was too large. Not as many personal relationships, especially after all the layoffs.

Advice to Senior Management – Lehman purchase was a mistake. The company had a history of growing organically. It worked in the past and should have continued the tradition.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Barclays Capital full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – You will stretch yourself beyond what you thought was possible

Cons – You are constantly being rated and at times, it feels as though they are looking for reasons to let people go

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate! Make reviews more straightforward and actually take into consideration 360 comments

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Barclays Capital full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Aside from few nice people and sometimes work-life balance (depending on department), none

Cons – Unless you are British or have "brown nose" don't expect to get anywhere in this company. Cons are not limited to:
Career advancement and recognition of efforts,
Promotion process and reviews,
Rotten Internal politics,
Pay and bonuses compare to the street.
Just to give you a flavor attrition rate is ~15-17% and goes as high as 33-34% in some departments. That should tell you something if 1 out of every 4 people leaves the company dissatisfied

Advice to Senior Management – Start recognizing internal talent and promote within. Listen to the feedback of employees and ACT on it. Don't be afraid to let go more senior people to satisfy cost cutting measures. Like instead of laying off 20 analysts take a look at some useless MD's and let them go. You'll achieve the same cost result, but will increase the morale.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Barclays Capital full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – There are some very smart folks, who will make your work experience worthwhile
It is a large company and has many different opportunities and resources. It is totally up to you how well you utilize it

Cons – There can be some unexciting nooks and silos, which you should learn to avoid.

Advice to Senior Management – Need to reduce silos and build a one company culture

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Barclays Capital full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great franchise, and smart people, innovative culture that lets you go after profit. two thumbs up

Cons – bureaucratic nightmare at times.
Pay below the street

Advice to Senior Management – Didn't appreciate Bobby D saying how everyone is replaceable because he has a stack of 20K application from college students around the world. I mean that was just awesome.

Respect your people- they are your brand

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend