BlackRock Reviews

Pros

Good employee benefit and learning environment

Cons

difficult to move up the level.

Advice to Senior Management

not at this moment.

Pros

Good pay! People are overall nice.

Cons

IT Department in BlackRock is the worst thing can happen in one career life. Everything is so manual, no process, no SLA, super chaotic causing long hours. Everything is reactive, senior management is incapable to support anything proactive or probably doesn't care. Money are spent on dumb things like office move, desk move, purchasing things that so many times more expensive than market...list can go on forever.

Advice to Senior Management

You are no longer running small sweatshop. WAKE UP!

Pros

Generally competitive compensation versus other industries
Brand name in financial services
San Francisco office is friendlier with better work-life balance

Cons

Executive management have no experience managing a 10,000 person firm, entrenched in old habits.
Extremely long work hours, pay does not align.
Technology is old, sub-par.
Lack of process, chaotic environment.

Advice to Senior Management

To the Board: the company is no longer a startup, bring in competent senior leadership with large-scale operations experience.
Stop burning out employees with sweat-shop work hours.
Share the wealth across all levels of the firm.

Pros

Global mobility
Small (compared to competitors)

Cons

Autocratic > despotic
Slightly chaotic
Everyone involved in everything

Advice to Senior Management

Need to loosen the reins a little

Pros

BlackRock is the biggest fund manager on the block, so it has the potential for great scale and domination of the asset management business. There are a couple of good managers.

Cons

Working in the business may be better, but London IT is a sorry department to be in. Decent senior managers are like needles in a haystack. Every time we have a senior manager addressing us we hear how great everything is but it is normally a case of The Emperor's New Clothes. Central control from New York is a death grip. Autonomy is not tolerated. Experienced people are given trivial jobs to do to "prove themselves". Sharing of information between teams is poor. Documentation is inadequate - the "Aladdin Way" has to be prised from key developer's heads.

Advice to Senior Management

Let talented people make their own decisions. Learn how to plan ahead. If you are moving 2500 staff to a new building and changing operating system at the same time you need to allocate sufficient resources and time to it, and communicate things clearly. Having an emergency meeting to communicate what is happening AFTER people have started moving shows you are ill prepared.

Larry, you may be a great business leader, but IT is seriously disfunctional - we waste a lot of time building exactly what we are told by our senior management only to be told it is not needed anymore. IT decision making occurs after everything is built. People like to say No as they feel that shows that are protecting Aladdin. They are wasting money and time - they should set be capable of setting the direction up front.

Pros

Working with smartestr people in the industry

Cons

IT is behind other firms

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up thje good work

Pros

THe company has a lot of smart people. It also pays very well. I liked my bonus. Also, the BlackRock name goes a long way in the industry.

Cons

There are relatively long hours but to be expected. The company is huge so its sometimes difficult to communicate with management

Pros

Blackrock is a strong company and has the potential to advance any hard working individual into the right career path.

Cons

Some team members are more helpful than other in the beginning training. It's a fast paced trading environment so unless you have a short learning curve, you will fall behind.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide more insight to new employees on ways to improve their performance and offer one on one time to get feedback on what management can do to help a new employee.

Pros

The people want to succeed

Cons

Long hours. The technology outside of Solutions is old.

Pros

Friendly environment to work in.

Cons

Lack of communication between groups in IT.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate better!!!!!!!