Citigroup Global Markets Limited Reviews

Pros

Truly global outlook.
Large interesting global projects.
Constant exciting change.

Cons

You need to put time in to understand the org structure and reach out across the org if you wnat to get anything done.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to leverage our global strength.

Pros

Compensation is ok (not great) compared to its peers. They paid actually paid out a fair share of cash and stock options (with fair vested schemes) during the crisis
Lots of initatives for actitivies to give back to the community. The corporate culture encourages volunteership and provides time and resources for it.

Cons

Firm as a whole

Lots of politics and bureacracy - The offices from different regions do not cooperate well each other. (E.g. the London and New York offices "apparently" do not work outside 9am and 6pm. Which is difficult to get things done in an investment banking environment)

Need connections to get something done, even if the work has to mandatorily be done by that party. Very difficult for a new employee to get a deal done unless he / she knows someone who has authority in a specific department. - Middle and back office personnel are notoriously uncooperative and political playing favorites to people.

People are overworked. Intense working environment breeds unprofessional behavior. Typical behavior is to ignore emails and calls that are relevant and blame "technology" for not being able to respond to legitimate enquiries or work related requests. Since anything that was said verbally are typically ignored
unless it is put in writing.

Employees spend a awful lots of time creating paper trails for every single mediocre step in a task to get some thing done. Citi even has a hierarchy chart in the HR directory for showing the direct reports to "escalate" issues when people are not doing their job properly. While this is a useful tool to pressure to get things done, this also leads to a lot of hostility amongst employees.

Micro-managing employees

Bellicose temperment of Managers where employees can get fired at basically any cause. HR does not play a role to protect the employees, they are on the company's payroll to protect the interests of the firm. If there was no cause for getting fired, HR will gladly step in to provide one. (This always works since noone is ever perfect)

Non-transparent review process / Unprofessional review

Advice to Senior Management

Whats the point? The government bailed them out and they answer to noone anyway...

Pros

Huge Organization. You'll learn to cope with many different functions and teams.
It will give you the possibility to work with many people from different countries.

Cons

Growth opportunities are not so many. Most of the people will change company to go up in the organization ladder.

Advice to Senior Management

Give the chance to freshers to stand out from the seniors who don't have much motivation.

Pros

Has some world class professionals

Cons

Mid level management too clubby - makes decisions based on own "silo" mentality as opposed to what is good for the firm.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut off / revamp the mid level management. Walk the floor more!

Pros

large organization, flexibility to move around
good reputation in some of the areas
seems to favor former employees when re-applying

Cons

bureaucratic, hierarchical, inefficient, unorganized management
slow response to new products or crisis
no 360 degrees review, so information doesn't flow upward

Advice to Senior Management

start doing 360 degree reviews, let go of some unproductive senior managers, re-organize the company, strengthen internal communication, more transparency

Pros

Very good benefits for employees.

Cons

Unstable company, everyone is afraid to make a move, to many red tapes and very slow for innovations.

Advice to Senior Management

Red tapes killed the dinosaurs.

Pros

large organisation, lots of potential to learn and diversify if given the opportunity.

Cons

money not as good as in other similar sized organisations. management, senior and direct can be lacking on transparency.

Advice to Senior Management

think of the best way to treat employees before putting your bonus figures first....

Pros

Met a number of good, interesting, competent people in my time here. Some folks are genuinely helpful.

Cons

It often takes ages to get things done due to the "processes" you have to be compliant with, which themselves seem to change on a regular basis.

Advice to Senior Management

Streamline processes

Pros

The benefits and salary were well above industry standards. Having this company on your resume will open doors for you. It is nice to work with some of the smartest people in the industry. The work environment is nice. There is a lot os potential for growth.

Cons

A lot of colleagues and managers had superiority complexes. A lot of management was not a approachable and managed through fear. It sometimes felt like high school with all of the cliques. They did not really try to make new hires feel welcome. Long hours, but worth the benefits.

Advice to Senior Management

Evaluate all levels of management and use employee surveys to address the way the business is being managed. Sometimes it's worth it to put employees before the bottom line.

Pros

to learn processes and how to manipulate people with the aim to eventually becoming a senior manager

Cons

Any technical skills you go in with wil be lost or become redundant unless you revisit them yourself regularly.

Advice to Senior Management

Give the staff a pat on the back for a job well done at the very least and make sure that if there are any rewards the message is passed down to all the staff and not just the level of management below you.
Channels of communication are still unclear.