Bloomberg reviews

I'll start from the beginning.... - The 'Financial Product Sales & Analytics' job title is a sham. It's quite literally customer service/support for Bloomberg terminal users - where basically you're the guy on the other end of the HELP HELP button on the terminal, that's it, definitely not as 'sexy' as the title tries to make it out to be. - They will dress up the position as a 'great way into the company, and an opportunity to learn about the product and industry' and promise that it is simply temporary before rotating into the Sales department (which is basically the same job but with less micro management and you get to travel). This is a lie. Your rotation into Sales is wholly based on what the business needs and your language skills. If you're a Spanish/French/non-language speaker, doesn't matter how good you are, you're staying in 'Analytics' (customer service) for the long-haul (at the very least 1.5 - 2 years if not longer). The only 'regional team' that sees semi-regular rotation into Sales are the Germans - If you've worked customer service before, you'll know what this job is like. Similar to a call centre but the problems customers come to you with are usually a lot more complex and require brains to work out. Add to this the fact you need to at any one time be dealing with between 2-4 customers, it produces a perfect cocktail of angst, anxiety and unnecessary stress, compounded by the sheer ineptitude of the management in the department who strut the floor like headless chickens (i will dedicate more words to this later on). - Your performance is completely and solely quantified into numbers. EVERYTHING is driven by 'metrics' i.e. how many customers you called on the phone, how long you took to answer a 'ticket', how much of the working day you spent taking tickets, etc. etc. the list is endless. They set these standards that someone has simply imagined over-night as the true gauge for good quality service, and if you don't 'keep-up' these standards, boy o boy you're in trouble. On top of that you get QC'd (quality control) where if you make a simple mistake, this will count negatively on your performance with no way to amend - all this combined leads to an obsession around 'getting your stats up'... needless to say this gets boring very quickly and causes completely unnecessary frustration, where even if you are actually doing a great job, it can look like you are absolutely dreadful. - MICRO MANAGEMENT GALORE... the analytics department is THE true embodiment of the phrase 'micro management'. As detailed above, absolutely everything you do gets filtered down into numbers, and management is obsessed with imposing their standards to the point that you'll often get shivers from the smelly warm breath of having them on your back. - Bureaucracy is a big part of the day to day in the analytics department. If you've got any kind of opinion, you better keep your mouth shut, as anything you say that might challenge the status quo simply counts against you - to the point where they will even try to push you out of the company. They don't value creativity or individuality at all - this means you'll often find yourself surrounded by drones resembling human beings which have been aptly named 'Bloombots'. These folk are the ones willing to jump over whatever hoops necessary to 'stand out', no matter how ludicrous, and have stapled a fake peroxide smile to their face. - You are FUNGIBLE, no really, you are. At least according to the global head of the department who mistakenly (or maybe intentionally) sent an email to everyone titled "Analytics - Building a Flexible, Fungible Workforce'. Don't worry though, if you don't have a spine and are happy to keep your mouth shut for the rest of your life then you'll find great job security here! - The Management... well from what you've read so far you can see that the people who end up staying at the company are doing it either out of necessity (money, family, etc.), or purely complacency with a 'comfortable' job. This really doesn't leave much and they are completely power drunk, often imposing their authority at the expense of others. - ATTRITION, yes you guessed it, the Analytics department sees vast amounts of people leaving within the first year of employment, myself included, for better or simply more rewarding roles. E.g. out of my 'starting class' of around 26 people, only 6 were still in analytics once a year had gone past...and I can assure you that none those 6 remainders want to be there. But this is how their operating model is built. They want to filter through the 'Bloombots' and filter out anyone who doesn't wish to conform, with a small group nestled somewhere in the middle who have navigated the field to relative comfort.

***If you are a potential applicant I strongly urge you to take this seriously*** I am only writing this as I truly wish I had taken the Sales & Analytics reviews on Glassdoor more seriously when applying for the role (obviously ignoring the one-liner responses submitted by HR/Mgmt) If you are starting your career you should not be enticed by the good graduate starting salary or easy visas (salary growth/bonus are minimal) but rather focus on relevant knowledge & experience that you can gain, career progression opportunities and a stimulating work environment - Bloomberg Sales & Analytics role scores Extremely poorly in all of the above! The job description for a position in Financial Analytics & Sales is a complete misrepresentation at best or an intentional scam at worst. Let’s start with Analytics - Analytics is the term used to describe the the Bloomberg help desk, it is a glorified call center which is micromanaged to the minute and monitored as if it were a primary school. This is where you will spend 90% of your day answering numerous chat questions at a time from Bloomberg clients which must be resolved within 30mins. If you are comfortable with repeating the phrase: “Hi, you are through to the Bloomberg Help Desk, how can I assist you?”, +50 times a day- then this job is for you. Due to the call center environment, your days and weeks are scheduled in advance with no flexibility. Your lunch hour is set for you and any time you are not answering questions or not at your desk you can expect management to be reaching out to you for an explanation (this includes toilet breaks ?!?!) After doing this type of work for just one day it will make your mind fry... now imagine doing that for 18 months and more... The next thing to ask, is what about the questions that you are constantly answering, surely they are financially orientated or analytical in nature or just mentally stimulating... the answer is NO to all of the above! You spend your days answering the most mind-numbing and stupid questions related to computers settings (my printer isn’t connected to Bloomberg) and how to find data on the terminal (which function can I use to see a share price) or how to use the terminal (show me how to change the color of my chart) and when you become an Advance Specialist the questions are just about navigating the most outdated and overly complex user interface since the internet was invented. There is nothing which requires analytical application or thought! So clearly, anyone who understands English will agree that this is Nothing remotely close to Financial Analytics! There is no skills or knowledge that you gain that are applicable to any company other then Bloomberg so you’ll have to brush up your CV to make it sound like you did anything of value. The basic financial markets training that you go through is at high school level and the rest is memorizing terminal functionality. (That’s the steep learning curve you will hear about) That’s it... that’s your job, day in and day out. There is no meaningful work, nothing lasts longer then 30mins and the management are constantly on your back about every minute that you are meant to be answering questions to the point where toilet breaks, sick days, train delays, coffee breaks are recorded and tracked. The quality of management is nothing any ambitious individual would want to aspire to... they are simply babysitters managing how many questions are answered, how quickly they were answered and how many positive survey are received after questions. The incentive system is deeply flawed as it is ALL about quantity and not quality - this runs through the whole company. As Bloomberg's business has matured so has the Sales department which is now very little to do with selling and more to do with collecting as many business cards as possible from existing clients so that you can reach your “Visit Target” for the year or its simply cold-calling clients to force feed unwanted functionality, all of it tracked and monitored to the minute. The culture is toxic! Everyone, every single person, wants to get out of the help desk (ADSK). So we have to put on a pretty face and pretend that we care about the meaningless work thatwe do, the only problem is that the next move to Sales (only career progression option available) is not a move any ambitious, clever or hungry person would want... Take this advise seriously or it will be you writing a similar review after 3 months from joining. Best of luck job hunting!