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      Barclays

      Engaged Employer

      Barclays reviews

      4.0

      78% would recommend to a friend

      (22,136 total reviews)
      avatar

      C.S. Venkatakrishnan

      85% approve of CEO

      72% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Barclays has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 22,136 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Barclays employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finanzas industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      22K reviews
      4.0
      Jul 17, 2011

      Great Exit Opportunities, Pay, But Too Much Office Politics

      Quantitative trader - foreign capital markets
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Terrific compensation packages for 22 year old engineering grads, particularly those working in the quant groups. Total Pay offered to me was much better than the starting offers from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc... Great way to pay off your student loans if you're willing to really work hard and grind and understand the fact that NOBODY comes here to make friends or hold hands with you and that yes, you WILL be arriving at 7AM and working till 10PM on most days. Other days can be worse, especially if you're in Forex capital market trading. Total Comp for 22--24 year olds across my group was around $140,000. Again, great way to pay off your student loans if you have some ugly ones. Better hours, better work/life balance, and better paid than the investment banking division. Great name to have on resume if you want exit ops. It's no Goldman, but seeing where many of my friends ended up, it can get you definitely places. Good access to private investors and clients if you have higher ambitions of leaving finance and moving onto entrepreneurship and tech start ups in the future. Terrific bathrooms. Stalls are great for napping in. Satisfactory coffee. Sometimes meetings are hilarious and the general atmosphere is more laid back than those at GS, MS, JPM.

      Cons

      - HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE OFFICE POLITICS. - Neverending fear that you can be fired the next day (500+ people fired out of nowhere early 2011, 50+ people fired again a few months later). - Some reckless colleagues can make extremely risky much less stupid trades that screw things up for everybody. - Not much transparency in many office affairs, particularly when it comes to handing out bonuses. - Fear of getting fired any day (as compared to my former classmates working at Goldman, MS, JPM...)

      2.0
      May 22, 2011

      Over-promised and under-delivered.

      Analyst
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      * Strong, well-respected brand. * Excellent research and market information available to staff * Top tier clients * Very strong leadership team at the team leader / executive level.

      Cons

      * Extremely bureaucratic, far more than other UK banks I have worked for. Takes too many steps and time to get very simple things done. * The Private Bankers are generally very poor line managers. The firm wrongly assumes that because they manage portfolios they are automatically good people managers. * "Goals" assigned by line managers (ie Private Bankers) are intangible and cannot be independently measured. This leaves your end of year review effectively 100% determined by the mood of your line manager, who sees little, and understands even less, of your role. * Do not support staff to study for professional qualifications, despite promising to do this at interviews and having clear guidelines from HR to do so. * Culture is very "blame" focused, with far more time being dedicated to pointing fingers than actually solving the client's problem.

      Viewing 220 - 222 of 22,136 Reviews
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      Glassdoor has 24,819 Barclays reviews submitted anonymously by Barclays employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Barclays is right for you.