Pros

An Incredible company with some of the most talented math/finance/IT/analytical minds in the world. Gym in the basement of NYC office, dry cleaners, shoe shining, massage parlor, wet sauna, free fitness classes

Cons

Get used to doing repetitive tasks as an Analyst for your first 2yrs, once ure there for about 4yrs you can start calling shots.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what you are doing.

Pros

Pay and benefits are good compared to my previous job

Cons

It seems that a small project that could take two weeks to complete, takes 3 months. It is hard to make people cooperate proactively, it seems that everybody is looking for an excuse not to be efficient.
My impression is that the predominant culture in the IT department is that of making everything more difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

Eliminate too many project managers that at the end of the day are not adding value.

Pros

Good pay, Good benefits, Good business

Cons

Asia Pac management is more Asia specific, Less caring about the person, more about getting the work done. More about selling yourself, less about getting recognized. More about individualism, less about team work. More about connections, less about ability. More about blame, less about self reflection. Outsourcing strategy is managed poorly and wildly. Wasted money to wring out benefits of cost cutting by hiring low cost and many times less experienced contractors, but adding pressure to experienced employees who have been with the firm longer to perform, while cutting benefits like training budget necessary to keep people sharp and unmeasurable but important benefit of keeping employees happier.

Advice to Senior Management

Similar to another comment of a technology company employee, stop trying to make good technical people managers.They make good project/work managers rather than people managers. Employ more people managers who can boost morale, stand up for their team and make the sum of the parts greater than the whole. The reason good engineers want to be managers is manager as a job is always glorified and obviously pays better. Come up with better IT strategy. Stop hiring CTO's who come, talks a good talk, cost cut, take credit and leave, while the foundation is crumbling from all the cheap labor. Cost cutting is good but much of what was done is short sighted. We should have them sign claw back clauses like what is happening on wall street right now. But in IT it would be hard to measure performance as numbers can be manipulated(I know), rather than measures of profit and loss on the business side that are harder to hide.

Pros

Good pay, good benefits.
Intelligent, sharp co-workers.
Better than average work/life balance, in my experience.
Great if you like your immediate surroundings/supervisor.

Cons

Still very corporate.
Can be frustrating if you are in a group where the culture is different than your own.

Advice to Senior Management

Make it easier for employees to move between teams; sometimes there is just not a fit between a new hire and his or her assigned group.

Pros

good people
firm doing well
compensation is competitive
leading player in industry
strong investment in technology
european centric management

Cons

firm exploiting its market position
top layer still undeserved
overlapping systems across the firm
too many project managers than actual delivery people

Advice to Senior Management

Management has to treat employees consistently and fairly rather than seeking to exploit market conditions such as rebanding, it needs to nudge incompetent top layer.

Pros

The people and expierence working for a global company. Besides growing as a professional your walk away with a better understanding of the Global economy

Cons

workload and uncertaintity of the financial markets

Advice to Senior Management

Never assume you do enough for your people. keep enforcing a culture of ownership , especially in senior management

Pros

Strong managent overall, fair pay, good communication of firm's strategies, came through recession very well

Cons

Management of individual teams can be poor. More attention is placed on recruiting strong front office staff, appears to be less selective for backoffice staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Incorporate 360 feedback for Director and Mananaging Director promotions process to ensure only managers who can direct and manage teams rather than please their own managers, are promoted.

Pros

Extremely well developed PB business with fantastic product platform and client offering. If you perform well, mgmt are flexible with your working hours. The services around the normal products, such as tax assistance, research etc are very good. If you are entering the industry, it is a very good place to start given its great education system and well rounded PB offering.

Cons

Dissapointing systems, innefficient back office, slow decision making process die to the bank's Swissness. Some political

Advice to Senior Management

Make PB leaner, focus on high performers, pay higher salaries and raise the standard on the people working in the bank.

Pros

Can pay well when times are good. Typically good information technology platforms that are sometimes cutting edge. High priority business obviously get the biggest bang for the buck, but there are some dinosaur projects and systems out there that are funded because of who the managers or system owners know.

Cons

Frequent layoff cycles terminating sometimes good employees because a technology, system or business is no longer considered 'strategic'. Rather than retrain good employees who don't have the required skills, Credit Suisse would rather layoff and rehire staff who are already skilled in the new technologies or businesses. This has happened frequently over the years and even people who thought they were 'safe' (once a strategic project/business/technology) were dumped abruptly.

Major changes in IT management happen frequently and teams are known to be told to stop paddling and switch directions. This wastes TONS of money - if this company had consistent leadership that would develop a long term plan (more that just a year or two) it would save tons of money.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop treating your people like a commodity and show some interest in them as people. Don't promote people based upon who they know and apply the same rules to all staff equally. You let too many managers get away with a ton of BS because they scream louder or know someone powerful in the organization. Too much politics.

Pros

work environment is positive with greater flexibility to perform your job. however, recent branding effort is placing more constrictions on creativity.

Cons

difficult to achieve promotions in research group. three years minimum in seat necessary to even be considered and, generally speaking, very few achieve promotions on first attempt

Advice to Senior Management

create more opportunity for associates to show skill set.