BlackRock reviews

3.7

68% would recommend to a friend

(6,561 total reviews)
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Laurence D. Fink

83% approve of CEO

69% positive business outlook

BlackRock has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 6,561 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 Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

7K reviews
2.0
Jun 24, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Depending on the group you join, you might learn a lot under a good manager, and have a great professional experience, like I had for the first several years at the company under my first manager. There are smart people. Your overall experience is kinda gonna be luck of the draw, but you could luck out. I made some really good friends there. Friendship that goes beyond the work tenure.

Cons

* Rampant H-1B abuse - they hire people who don't have the concept of break points or debugging as software engineers, often times senior positions. Those salary should've gone to US educated grad. (The competent work visa holders are the most unfortunate ones, having to do multiple the work on a fraction of the salary and stick it out for many years before they can jump ship.) * Subpar hires leading to bad practice becoming the norm - spaghetti code in production is the norm. Testing in production just became the norm. People will run scripts that bombard the company's own servers and the whole thing always end up being a blame game where people who did nothing wrong end up having to not only work more to clean up other people's messes, but also somehow take the blame for it. * This vicious loop leads to a toxic culture, of blame casting, credit stealing, and offloading work to other people. Someone will make something that's not your problem your problem, and you need to do it, not as a favor, but to atone for a bogus problem that they created for you. Management repeatedly rewards those who screw other people to get ahead. Multiple complaints to management were not only unaddressed, but furthermore, covered up, unless employees go straight to hr. * Competent people who have a choice keep leaving, and the workload gets distributed to the rest of the competent employees who can actually do the work, and they inevitably leave too. It started out as a domino effect but in the past year or so has accelerated into a snowballing phenomenon.

3.0
Nov 1, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1) Smart, friendly and talented employees. There are some incompetent people that need to be managed out, but that's been true at all firms where I've worked. 2) Approachable senior management. I don't hold a position that will ever command any special treatment, but I don't find it difficult to get access to senior managers if/when I need it. 3) Respect for diversity - at least in the San Francisco office. I can't speak for the other locations. 4) Focus on community engagement. The San Francisco office is very civic-minded. 5) Decent benefits. No, this isn't Salesforce or Google, but benefits aren't bad by any means.

Cons

1) Non-existent work-life balance. There are a handful of people who mysteriously manage to keep to an 8 hour schedule. For the rest of us, 12-hour days are more the norm. If you go out on vacation, expect a massive backlog upon your return. 2) Average base salaries and unimpressive bonuses. Of course, this is all dependent on the function where you work. New hires all seem to be content with their comp packages, but over the course of 3-5 years you'll see minimal increases and may eventually find yourself below market. 3) Dysfunctional promotion structure. If you're hired at the Analyst or Associate level there's still room for you to grow, although it will take longer than you might like. At the VP or Director level, further advancement will take years. The process is based upon the visibility of your business unit, political clout of your line manager, willingness of that line manager to advocate for you with higher-ups, and the perception of your role in NY HQ. 4) Weak talent management/career development. Many managers have strong technical skills, but have no idea how to manage direct reports and help mentor them in their careers. Succession planning is also weak, which leads to external hiring over internal promotion. 5) Continual pressure to achieve more with less. In the last couple of years the mantra has been "raising the bar", which is essentially code for assigning the maximum amount of work to as few people as possible. 6) Highly political environment. Those who have been around a while can navigate the personalities, but if you're new to the firm you may be frustrated.

1.0
Dec 15, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Smart people, but too conservative to really be a thought leader now.

Cons

No longer innovating, pushing active management junk on the market, trying to be everything to every client and at the same time paying literally no attention to the people that help make the business worth purchasing in the first place. If you stay there, you deserve each other.

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