Epitome of Mediocrity with Wannabe Wall Street Culture
Pros
I worked as a Data Analyst within the Global Data department for several years. Overall I'd say this is a great place to work for those who want to simply collect their paychecks (pretty decent amount too) without all the stress often associated with similar salary range in any other firms. Keep calm and tag data, then you shall be rewarded with a peaceful and decent life. I have no idea how anyone can leave a 4- or 5-star review of this place, but I am very happy for them that their experience working at Bloomberg was significantly better than mine. Here are some things I liked about working there: - Free breakfast, lunch, and snack at the cafeteria - obligatory mentioning of the free food for the employees. I know it's cliche, and almost all past reviewers mentioned it, but it does save a lot of money for food. Don't expect anything too fancy, but hey, it's free. With that said, I should also mention that it's pretty sad for a workplace when almost everyone lists free food as their favorite part of their job. - Very flexible hours and incredibly easy job – during my time at the firm, I never had to work late or come in during weekends/holidays. Most people come in after 8am and the office is deserted by 5pm. You only spend 2-3 hours each day actually doing your job (I agree with the person who called it “dystopia” – if you have to spend more than that, you should seriously reconsider your life), and are free to do anything you want (read the news, pretending to do work, etc) for the rest of the day. The job itself is incredibly easy, and I seriously doubt that you need a college degree to do any of our daily tasks. - Great benefits and decent salary – Bloomberg employees get some of the best benefits out there (health, dental, vision). You also get unlimited sick days on top of your 4 week paid vacation. I also think that the pay is pretty decent for what we do, at least for the NJ-based employees. I’ve read some reviews here (perhaps they worked in NYC) and heard my colleagues regarding how they think they are underpaid compared to “their friends who work for banks and other financial firms.” – I disagree with them. For what we do and how much work we do, I think the pay is fair. It’s pretty embarrassing to hear some of them comparing themselves to traders and PMs on the Street. - *Some* great colleagues and constant collaboration – Like many other reviewers mentioned, you will meet some very bright colleagues in the firm. I also like that the company does a good job of promoting collaboration (both within the team/department and outside), so you can team up with smart people to work on interesting projects. The problem is that these people are rare, and they always end up leaving after several years because the job itself is nothing but repetitive and mindless. I have truly enjoyed working with some people during my time at the firm; I just wish I met them elsewhere so that we would work on something that actually mattered. - High degree of freedom – most of the managers in the department are clueless and have no idea what is going on and what you are working on. This means that you have unbelievably high degree of freedom, and can get away with almost anything. You can literally not do any work for one full week and no one would say anything to you, so long as you remember to ask your managers how their weekend was, how their dogs are doing, how their kids did in their baseball/soccer game, etc. By the end of your first year, you will become an expert in small-talks and master the art of superficial smiles.
Cons
- Boring job – when I applied to work at Bloomberg, the job description sounded like it will involve at least some research/analysis of various asset classes (depending on what team you get assigned to). In reality, the job is basically a glorified caller center worker who tags data. My days consisted of moving data points from point A to point B, and dealing with angry clients asking why we make stupid mistakes. Occasionally, you are given some “projects” which are either just simple and mind-numbing mass data corrections, or some aimless “improvement” requests that die down without real solutions several months later. I felt like my brain cells were slowly dying of inactivity during my tenure there. - Clueless managers and apathetic colleagues – it’s true what they say about how quality of your work experience depends on the people you work with. Most managers are completely clueless, and they are where they are only because they’ve been working in the company for so long (and their peers who are actually qualified presumably left the firm long time ago). They have no idea how to run a department/team, but still love bossing around because they are delusional and power-tripping. They act as if they are in Wall Street by throwing around finance/management jargons and acronyms that have no applications to our operation, and seem to be only occupied with pleasing their own managers. I felt like I was in a big frat house where the managers were busy “bro-ing” with each other and their managers. In terms of your colleagues, there are three types: 1) those who are ambitious, smart, and motivated; 2) those who are neither smart nor motivated; and 3) those who are smart, but not motivated. Of those in the three categories, people in the first category quickly realize the limitation of the department and leave as quickly as possible. Thus, you are left to work with those who can’t perform because they lack the skills/intelligence, or won’t perform because they just don’t care. Either way, the quality of work that gets done is mediocre at best. The worst part of all of this is that before not too long, you will find yourself in one of the latter two categories at some point if you decide to stay for too long. - Laughable technology – for a company who claims to be a leader in the financial data business, the technology used in the firm is a joke for the most part, and once again, mediocre at best. The management refuses to invest serious money into developing a better system; instead, they only invest in cheaper patching-up solutions just to get by. - No growth opportunity – the company has a very flat structure, which means that there are very few management positions available. You learn absolutely nothing that is applicable outside of your team, so most people are stuck doing the same things year after year. If you are smart and good at what you do, your chance of being promoted actually seems to decrease since they are worried that they won’t be able to find a suitable replacement for you. There are options to apply to transfer internally (or to NYC), but the competition is very tough, and even if you are able to transfer, more likely than not you will be doing similar tasks that you have been doing – just with a different asset class. Those who are motivated/smart enough to learn new skills don’t even bother applying internally – they simply leave the firm. - Long lines for bathroom stalls – I don’t see any previous reviewers mentioning it, but this is a real problem in the Skillman office. I don’t know what they do (nor do I want to know) in the bathroom stalls, but regardless of when you go to the bathroom, there is *always* a line for stalls. It wasn’t rare for people to wait 5-10 minutes in line. Apparently going number two is a privilege in that office. My current colleagues think that I’m making this up, but sadly, I’m not. My apologies for the long review, but in short, if you have even half a brain and think that you have a shot at being successful at any other place, do yourself a favor and stay away from this place.