Goldman Sachs Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Good benefits, talented and motivated people

Cons

Can be longer working hours and big demands on you as you get senior

Pros

Collaborative culture
Support for junior level employees
Good infrastructure
Flatter structure

Cons

Negative reputation risk (recently)
Recently, found meritocracy to be compromised. Especially when the originally manged risk taking was encouraged, but now employees are uncertain on direction

Advice to Senior Management

Clear direction on risk appetite
Sort out PR issues

Pros

1.Very intelligent people who will always help you if they have time.

2.Strive to always create new and better solutions.

3.Lots of activities and projects to keep interns entertained throughout.

4.Never a lack of work, always something that needs doing.

Cons

1.Management expect a lot from you which means long hours are normal.

2.Work/Life balance was non-existant for a while.

3.Bad if you want to see the family regularly.

Advice to Senior Management

1.Be more mindful of employees and their work/life balance.

Pros

A great compensation package has been offered to me.

Cons

They make you work a lot!

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership of GS is great.

Pros

Intelligent colleagues , pro-active environment, excellent working environment.
Opportunity to evolve and revolve arounfd various business units. In summary first class.

Cons

Glass Ceilings, sometimes the opportunity to progress is not always obvious.
The sharing of knowledge wealth can sometimes override the urgency of the situation.

Advice to Senior Management

More ,more and more communication about the bigger picture.
Appraisals could be more regular as could an earlier indication of bonus pool.

Pros

good facilities, nice environment, get to meet with a lot of bright people
good location in central london with access to tube

Cons

work is slightly too stressful and the performance is always assessed. You have to be very focused and hard working

Advice to Senior Management

give the workers more time off and relax more
should have more recreational activities
give more holidays and less overtime working

Pros

-A lot of training
-A lot of personal development
-Personal career growth is fantastic!
-Communication top down and other way around is great!

Cons

-Cannot really expect work life balance, even though they try and will understand when you need some time off for your personal life
-Competition is quite tough

Pros

Quality of people, brand recognition in the industry (despite recent mauling in the press)

Cons

Recent press coverage has portrayed Goldman as 'the evil vampire squid.'

Pros

Benefits good, but stress high. Money good, work lofe balance ok.

Cons

Coming back from mat leave was not well done and summarily redundancy was compulsory.

Advice to Senior Management

Less personal issues should uncloud the politics.

Pros

Loads of opportunities. People are really nice and helpful. Everyone is performance driven so make sure you're good enough. Its unlikely you can waffle your way up to management.

Cons

Currently the reputation has been baffled by the financial crisis. In my opinion, this is absolutely unfair and the financial crisis really hasn't only one or two organizations to blame.

Advice to Senior Management

I really enjoyed my career at Goldman Sachs. Advice or feedback to the leadership at GS?..... No, I don't really have any.