BlackRock Reviews in Philadelphia, PA Area

Pros

Exposure, access to knowledge, fast paced, resume builder

Cons

Work life balance, compensation -everything goes to the stock holders not the employees

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of the people who put in the hours. Weed out mid level managers who are disconnected from the groups they manage.

Pros

Friendly and helpful co-workers: Everyone worked well together and was willing to help out whenever needed.
Independence: My managers really trusted me and allowed me to complete projects on my own, which is saying a lot considering I was a student co-op.

Cons

Most of the work I did was monotonous, so the tasks were became boring very quickly. But as I learned more and finished my daily tasks quicker, my supervisor gave me more interesting work.

Advice to Senior Management

Do not be afraid to hire students with little industry experience (at least for internships and co-ops). I had no industry experience (had not yet even completed any of my finance classes at the time) and I learned a lot and was able to contribute.

Pros

Coworkers are intelligent and hard working.
Compensation for similar level positions seems fair.
Sometimes the right people are recognized with promotions.

Cons

Management continues to raise the bar for employee performance measurement, while not growing staff with the increasing demands on employees.
Requests for help with staffing are ignored.
People are overworked and under-appreciated, and obvious candidates for promotions are overlooked.
Impossible to balance work and life, particularly if you are interested in spending any quality time with your family.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire enough people to ensure quality work output and timely client deliverables.
This will improve the Blackrock product and employee satisfaction.

Pros

Challenging and exciting work. Fast paced. Quality employees. Great proprietary systems. Top notch facilities. Good location locally. Respect given to all levels and departments.

Cons

Too fast paced at times. Work life balance issues persist. Global model makes for work seemingly 24/7 at times depending on role and department.

Pros

Decent Pay and benefits. You are given the basics of what you need to perform your job. There are additional educational possiblilties if you persue them. People are very knowlegeable here.

Cons

To me manangement seems not to care about the whole person, as long as I show up to work and do my time all is well. I've been told to succeed I must watch my email and pick up additional things on weekends, contrary to any work life balance that is talked about. Two huge companys are coming together and it's been a hard process of trying to merge 'legacy' operations into one Blackrock. I mentioned the pro of talented people, however its hard for all this talent to share. People are nose to the grindstone in most cases and too lost in their own work to look up and foster better interpersonal relationships.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect your people and their abilities. Trust them to do the work. Don't force saturdays in the office to have coverage when what you want us to do can be done just as easily from home. If you respect us then you'll get more out of everyone than just the minimum.

Pros

Fairly easy going assignments and nice people to work with. Comfortable work space in cubicle farms with free coffee and plenty of time to use the free onsite fitness center. Great company to intern for as you can earn $1K per week.

Cons

CW's are lower paid and are not recipients of BlackRock's lofty annual bonus payouts to employees. Salaries are high given some associates have merely only a high school education, particularly in IT at the help desk level. Company management culture is somewhat flawed given it is true there is micro management at the senior level and decisions are made based on no rhyme or reason. Corporation walked away from massive housing project debt obligation in New York and given BlackRock's perceived stature in the financial services industry, this is not being a good corporate citizen!

Advice to Senior Management

Honor your obligations; the world is watching you! Consider more outsourcing to cut costs if you wish to remain competitive in the industry. Your investors are watching!

Pros

the Pay...that is really it now a days....

Cons

Work life balance is a joke at the new post merger BlackRock...and it's getting worse...

Do more with less and do it longer and do it on the weekend...don't think smart...just work hard and for many hours...

The new post merger BlackRock basically is consumed by politics, cost cutting and the bottom line at the expense of technology and people.

they basically do not want their IT staff to be smart and work smart...they want you in the office...60 hours a week...waiting for something to happen.

Advice to Senior Management

STOP THE LIES!!! Quit being cheap on technology!! Let changes flow up....those at the top are stale and afraid to let go of "they way we used to do things"....The same decisions by the same few will lead to the same results...only on a larger scale!!!

Embrace technology....advanced technology!!!!

Pros

Decent work life balance
Decent comp/benefits

Cons

Be prepared to give your life blood to Larry. Please genuflect upon entry
Middle management is forever swinging back and forth running to and fro trying to anticipate what the founder fathers want.
Power and decision making is too centralized
Infrastructure is barely hanging on..trying to support the various lines of the business (I.e Aladdin, Asset Management, Accounting clients, BRS clients)
Never open to outside ideas (esp. those hired from outside the firm). Our way rules
Very very political. Suck up or skate out

Advice to Senior Management

Open up the think tank and the different ways things can be done. It's not the small BlackRock anymore with 30 employees.

Pros

- Highly respected firm
- Experience will look good on resume
- Flat organizational structure
- Senior managers are approachable
- Good facilities in Wilmington - cafeteria, covered parking lot and gym
- Good benefits

Cons

- Limited career advancement opportunity, especially after the merger of Merrill Lynch Asset Management.
- Limited internal mobility
- Office politics
- Employee contribution is not recognized or rewarded, some groups are better than the others
- Long hours, no work/life balance

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management should pay more attention to employee career development and promote internal transfers. Reward should be based on individual performance not job titles.

Pros

BlackRock provides great pay and benefits to entry level workers. Also, provides the opportunity to take on as much work as you desire.

Cons

Little respect among coworkers, however, at the same time it feels as if it is just one big boy's club.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should be atleast somewhat aware of what is going on at all levels of the spectrum. Too often, they seem disengaged from the rest of the company.