BlackRock reviews

3.8

68% would recommend to a friend

(6,545 total reviews)
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Laurence D. Fink

82% approve of CEO

69% positive business outlook

BlackRock has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 6,545 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The BlackRock 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

7K reviews
1.0
Apr 8, 2019

Applicant Beware

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The best part about working at BlackRock is also the worst part. The firm attracts some of the best talent from around the globe given their reputation, so you get to work with some pretty talented individuals, whom you can build great relationships with. That being said, the BLK reputation also attracts some of the most egotistical, narcissistic, rude, unqualified individuals I have ever met. The benefits are on point with a company of its size, but nothing exceptional. The firm recently switched to an 'FTO' policy, but you have to go thru a grueling process to get your days off approved with your manager. Other then these two points, there is nothing else really positive about working at BlackRock, oh there is free coffee and water in the office

Cons

Most of the individuals you have to deal with on a day to day basis on your team, or others you interact with on a daily basis are some of the worst people walking this planet. As mentioned above, they are some of the most egotistical, narcissistic, rude, unqualified individuals you will ever meet. Every client issue is a matter of life and death, and they will make you work day and night until the seemingly so important issue is resolved. And then once you do resolve the issue, you will get no thanks from them,they will just move onto the next "urgent" issue. They put the client first and not their employees, which makes for a very toxic environment. Not to mention, these individuals walk around acting as though they are working on the cure for cancer or something else super important. There is no culture and the employee / manger relationship is non existent, you are just made to work as though its a sweatshop. There is no recognition for any work you do, or any of your achievements. The only reward you get is more work to be completed, and you will be called on the weekend if anything goes wrong. There is a zero work life balance, look forward to being on call for about 24 hours a day, because half the people at the firm are barely competent enough to get dressed in the morning, let alone resolve any issues on their own. A normal workday is 8:30 AM - 8:00 PM, and expect to be hunted down if you are not in the office and someone happens to be looking for you. Additionally, internal mobility is a complete joke! In conclusion, you would have a better time in prison then you would working at BlackRock.

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BlackRock Response
7y
Thank you for taking the time to share your opinions with us. The experiences you described while working at BlackRock are not in line with our values and are concerning to us – especially in terms of the interaction with colleagues that you described. We strive to develop people managers at all levels of the organization and provide benefits to help employees with their work-life balance.
3.0
Apr 17, 2023

I quit

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good pay, good benefits. Nothing more beyond that.

Cons

After I filed reports with Employee Relations, my manager would confront me and say things like "You should not have involved Employee Relations", and he would try to intimidate me. I was often used as a scapegoat when someone else was to blame or it was an issue beyond my scope. I was expected to put in extra hours to meet unreasonable deadlines. I finally had enough and resigned without having a new job lined up. The firm has several Employee Resource Groups and takes pride in their Mental Health Ambassador program, but it's mostly just a show. They do not actively really get involved or do events that Resource Groups should do to promote a healthy, psychologically safe, work environment. There are no consequences for management that bullies employees and uses scare tactics to intimidate those at a lower level. Be prepared to go into the office three days a week. This is the expectation and if you are not going in at least three days a week, you are placed on the "naughty" list and reprimanded.

1.0
Feb 26, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Financial company, good list of clients

Cons

I had a very bad experience working with BlackRock Inc.. I was a high-ranking student with 3.9 GPA from a premier Technology university in upstate New York with over 4 years of prior full-time software development experience in IT industry. I have several project star awards to my credit prior to working with this company. At BlackRock, I was hired as an Analyst with an inaccurate software engineer job description out of my university by my manager in Green Package Automation team - Portfolio Analytics Group only to realize that they could not find young graduates to fill in their requisitions and people who had left, and hence they did not disclose the truth! Yes, believe me they do manipulate job description and wages when hiring you. I was based out of Wilmington, Delaware and the work culture is a bad shape! Cheap, unqualified professionals, low wages, intensely bureaucratic software release process, work times being tracked, your computer screen is being stalked, your conversations are being stalked, etc. Little or no good mentors available since even they are fighting/competing with the company culture by leaking your performance and minor mistakes to your manager to gain credit for being watchful seniors. If you are a Software Engineer or Technology-related professional this company will not be a good move! The management has only bad apples left since the good ones have left. Managers have been promoted not by virtue of technology knowledge or innovation but since they stayed back when others left leaving no competition for them. You are assigned work on Angular, Angular UI, Node.js, jQuery, JavaScript but my manager did not have first-hand experience/competence on the same. Till date they keep writing and maintain Perl scripts and have recently started building web applications internally. Totally unstructured process of developing process, literally no unit-test cases written, or full-time tester testing your developed software but aiming for 'whatever you've done will work when released'! They do not understand or implement Agile software development methodology and use JIRA as a substitute assuming that by itself is Agile methodology. Absence of a process means believing in incorrect estimations of work and blaming that on your team members in year-end review. To correct the decade-old bad software left behind by employees who have left, rewriting and reinventing software is not possible since moving a brick will cause business to be disrupted and I've tried earnestly and my manager watched silently to blame me for my efforts. Problem-solving and design-thinking (the very core tenet of software engineering) is non-existent! Following such a practice for a year only makes you a bad engineer and develops an attitude of complacency and incompetence (with correct practices). Applying Organizational Behavior, I could notice employees working too many extra hours (both on weekdays and on weekends). Male employees with grey hair at the age of 25 and several others going bald at an age of 28-30 due to over-working, fighting frustration and bad mental health. I had noticed employees having an accident/surgery and showing up to work (on sometimes crutches) next day. Workload management and Empathy was missing! I had to hide my happiness and minor accomplishments from my own team and manager. Your year-end review will be frustrating and a big let down in your overall career because your will be evaluated against goals/job description you did not set! You only realize the bad experience in the job after being deep down in the bad shape and how bad an engineer you had become after you make a good move (i.e. find a good job) and become a good competitive engineer again, and earn a promotion with fair and spirited team culture and mentors. Rest you go figure.

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