Credit Suisse Reviews in New York City, NY Area

Pros

Incredible people, lots of deal flow! Great diversity initiatives

Cons

Slighty lower overall comp, but incredible coworkers

Advice to Senior Management

Need to compensate us better for the hours we put in

Pros

Great firm with large potential. As the second largest Swiss bank it has few challanges ahead on both the domestic and foreign markets.

Cons

Budget constrains will impact future perfomance, however, the trend in cutting unperforming task will benefit the firm in the long run.

Advice to Senior Management

more transparency

Pros

It was rewarding. When I started with the firm, I was given the opportunity to build my own team, develop a reporting package used by sr management to monitor the group's risks and performance. I was then challenged with enhancing the SOX documentation and testing, and then transitioning the work into the line.

Cons

Given the recent downturn in the markets, along with senior management turnover, the environment has changed. Employees are mandated to support why the firm needs them. Management performs morning and evening rounds to see what time people come in and what they leave. Employees are working longer hours. Functions are being turned into production roles, with no opportunity for growth and expansion for those performing those functions. Other functions are leaving NYC area entirely, which is contributing to the low morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Credit Suisse is not the place to be these days!

Pros

Good benefits, Credit Suiise is a strong, well established Company.

Cons

Shared Services employees get lousy bonuses and go years without raises while the Front Office receive insanely large bonuses and raises. To top it off, when Front Office works with Shared Services the Front Office employees often treat Shared Services with total disrespect. The Shared Services employees are always told there is no money in the budget to hire more employees, employees working in certain groups are expected to do the work of two people.

Pros

As with any investment banking job the pay is good so that keeps me around. The benefits package is also very generous.

Cons

It is very political at CS. It is hard to get promoted and it is more about who you know than what you do,

Advice to Senior Management

Management is very nice, but needs to take some more risk I think. To compete with the other banks, we need to use our balance sheet.

Pros

Awesome communication among the members as well as clients. East to learn new things from each other and great environment.

Cons

Many of its trading strategy is mainly focused on bonds and its derivatives, more of secure asset compared to other company.

Advice to Senior Management

It is awesome place to work. However, it seems like company is pursuing too secure strategy in trading. More risk taking seems to be required.

Pros

Manager was extremely supportive and great to work for. Great team. Everyone works well together.

Cons

Virtually no mobility. Very hard to advance.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to promote mobility, development, and advancement.

Pros

it provides good career opportunities, especially for career newbies.
it also has relatively good internal mobilities.
good work life balance.

Cons

compensation is so so.
the culture is a bit boring.
it is a relatively conservative investment bank, compared to others. The bonus won't be as outstanding as others during the "good" season.

Pros

friendly people, not as hard charging and aggressive as other banks, great location

Cons

this large bureaucratic banks is filled with middle management and siloed task groups. expect inefficiency in getting anything done. it is completely incompetent making your computer a useless tool to get anything done.
management is focused on cutting expenses and not investing in resources. also seem to be more focused on legal liability than generating business.

Advice to Senior Management

try to be effective.

Pros

-Great culture
-Lots of intelligent, fun coworkers from diverse backgrounds
-Great training program for incoming analysts

Cons

-Long hours...expected for IB analyst
-Compensation is only average or slightly below average for bulge bracket IB...but you'll still make a ton of money
-Sometimes annoying that HQ is in Europe and decisions for entire bank and IB division come out of Europe