BlackRock reviews

Middle management is out to save their own hides. There is no career pathing or feedback that is constructive. Your reviews are regurgitated comments from your self-appraisal back to you. The one exception is things to work on. They love to point those out at review time, but when regular meetings are done, there is no mention of areas of improvement, only "keep up the good work". There was no training at all, just a "here is your desk, good luck". There is no culture or team. Everyone learns to look out for #1 and use others for their own advancement.

Now, before anyone assumes that long hours and unpleasant people are part of the Wall Street culture, note that I've worked for a large Wall Street firm before BLK. At the other firm, management worked hard to make sure people were working human hours, and people were genuinely nice. On my team at BLK, if you came in after 8, or left before 7:30 p.m. people would talk about you behind your back. I had ideas for reducing analyst hours but no one wanted to hear about it... it was as if upper management liked seeing their analysts work 13 hour days. They also only seem to hire people with A+ personalities... not good because people are out for themselves and don't know how to work as a team. They also use BLK as a stepping stone and don't genuinely care about their jobs - they put in lots of hours for "face time" and to get a free dinner but in reality the job can get done much quicker.