Pros

The pay is nice, the work environment was great and the employees were a real nice group of people. Initially had a great work culture. Management was great at training. I felt as if I landed the career of my dreams. I would definately work for them again....

Cons

After Lehman fell, environment became hostile. People not as willing to help each other. Unsure if management knew of lay-off situation, but they posed as if everything was ok, but it was clear after the first lay-off that there may be more to come. I felt a little deceived, but was ready to accept my pink slip during the second round.

Advice to Senior Management

Just be real.. and call back old employees when your ready. :D

Pros

BLK has a great culture and excellent brand name. The sell side treats you like kings and queens when you are on the portfolio management side. You hit the ground running and literally do everything that the senior PMs do, which is invaluable.

Cons

It is nearly impossible to move between product groups on the portfolio management side despite expressing interest in something else after a year or two. If a product group is not doing well, a young associate is stuck with a stagnant career at an excellent firm. Then what?

Advice to Senior Management

There should be an Associate program that is rotational. After a 2 year rotation, a person can then choose the specialty or a group chooses from the program. This way, both the associate and the group know if they are a good long term fit.

Pros

You will work with some of the smartest people and clients in the asset management business at BlackRock. The work that is taking place here is at the vanguard of the investment industry and you will learn a lot.

Cons

Long hours if you want to advance in your career. Pay is not in line with market - it's not terrible pay, but could be better. With multiple mergers over the past few years (SSRM, MLIM, Quellos, BGI) the firm is getting larger and larger, and at times it feels like the firm is splitting apart at the seams. At the same time, there's now a huge layer of middle management (VP or Director level, sometimes MD) that frankly is pretty useless and are simply fighting to hold on to their jobs - especially with two rounds of layoffs in 08-09. Increasingly there are a huge amount of politics to distract from the day-to-day tasks at hand.

Advice to Senior Management

Work harder to identify strongest employees, and think hard about getting rid of others. Pay could be better.

Pros

The people are smart, and encourage the summer interns to ask a lot of questions. The management is approachable and personable.

Cons

People work long hours. The summer I worked there was during the recession, so they did not pay overtime hours, even though we were unofficially encouraged to put in the additional hours.

Advice to Senior Management

The summer analyst program is great, you all are doing a fantastic job.

Pros

If you are right out of school, it is a fun environment and a good place to learn and develop skills

Cons

There is very little training provided to employees to develop necessary skill to advance.

Advice to Senior Management

training program is needed to develop employees to succeed in their career inside or outside of Blackrock

Pros

BlackRock is the go to firm for investment management and risk analytics. It is a great name to have on one's resume. Beyond that, BlackRock is a great learning experience. Employees are sharp and willing to share knowledge. The firm is supportive of ethical behaviors and is increasingly encouraging non-profit involvement. The BGI transaction is opening doors to even more opportunities.

Cons

The hours are long. The perks are decreasing. The pay is ok. This is not only relative to BlackRock but rather to the industry as a whole in recession times.

Advice to Senior Management

Career development efforts need to be given more consideration by upper management. In addition, there is an urgent need for more life in BlackRock's view of "work-life" balance.

Pros

People are really nice. Open culture. You actually feel comfortable going to work and there's no strict dress code. You feel like you want to work there because of the people.
It's very welcome to ask questions and you have a variety of resources to tap into to.

Cons

Portfolio analytics is not investment and market-driven as it might sound. During the internship, it is up to you to direct your learning and interests.
A skill that will advance you in this environment is technical skills because the job deals a lot of production. If you know a bit of computer science, that's great.
For me. I did not, so I really focus my time on learning and understanding terminologies and market-related issues.
Full time responsibilities can be a lot more tech-based than the summer internship.
Skills from this group might not be transferable to other finance jobs due to the heavy focus on its proprietary production work.
Full time is also a lot more hours than internship - so summer experience doesn't give u a clear idea of what your full time would be like.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers need to be more straightforward and honest about reviews. Being too nice is sometimes very misleading.

Pros

I get to work with some of the most knowledgeable and hard working individuals in the industry. Working for an industry leader.

Cons

Individuals are not always promoted based on performance. Management often plays â??favoritesâ?� which leads to deserving individuals missing out on career advancing opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward individuals based on their performance and ability, do not play favorites and give employees honest feedback and advice to advance in their careers.

Pros

1. Name of Company on Resume
2. Great learning environment if one chooses it to be
3. CFA sponsorship

Cons

1. Promotion abilities are limited due to poor management decisions within AMG-Retail Sales.
2. Difference in culture between NYC office

Advice to Senior Management

Talent retention, compensation and recognition needs to be more emphasized. Also, concept of one BlackRock should be advocated firmwide, including legacy ML divisions.

Pros

- Everyone is very willing to help
- Receive very substantial responsibility right off the bat
- Challenging environment that will keep you on your toes
- Friendly atmosphere
- Company really values Technology

Cons

- compenstation not as good as you could get from other companies doing a similar role
- depending on what you do, you could be working very late hours...

Advice to Senior Management

pay employees more..