Capital One reviews

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Richard D. Fairbank

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13K reviews
1.0
May 21, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fairly flexible work schedules, pay and benefits are ok. Work/life balance for the right groups is great. The business leadership is very sharp. A lot of the rank and file are genuinely good people.

Cons

Most of the senior IT leadership is incompetent, with most of them being unprincipled Peter Principled project managers promoted way, way above their competency level who know little about technology, less about leadership, and nothing about building and fostering a healthy organization. But they are really good at playing politics and deflecting blame for their failures onto suitable scapegoats. If you aren't in the right clique - your career will go nowhere. If you are technical, your career will go nowhere (but don't worry, they have been working on a career track for technical people for the last 6 years that will eventually take it beyond the manager level, honest, it's coming any day now). Unless you come in fresh out of college, it's unlikely you will leave the company with a better set of skills than you originally came with. If that's not enough to dissuade you, here are a few more cons: they have a meeting driven culture - as in all day, all meetings. Nothing can get decided without several meetings involving up to a dozen or so people to discuss it. Even if it involves only one person actually doing something. The "anonymous" opinion surveys...probably aren't anonymous. If you aren't already tagged as being targeted for promotion, you probably won't get a great rating, no matter how great of a job you actually did. And if you aren't in the right clique - guess what, you probably won't get tagged for promotion. If you are in the right clique though, get ready for champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

3.0
Feb 11, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

High energy place, smart people around, quality of work

Cons

The card division had worsened over the years. Politics had taken root in the culture. From being a fair and progressive company, the place had become a joke. The management selects a bunch of individuals based on perception and then gives them a free pass to success. The selection is purely based on perception rather than true results. The place was hell bent on showing how open it is to certain historically disadvantaged groups and gave favorable benefits to them inspite of work not upto the mark. (Hint: if you are from such groups might not be a bad idea to join ) Promotions especially to the dir level make no sense, its purely driven by who "likes" you!

2.0
Feb 7, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work/life balance - associates are allowed to work from home when needed (at "manager's discretion" of course; if your manager's a jerk, good luck). Capital One also pays fairly well and encourages associates to volunteer regularly. I think your experience at this company really depends on your role and the organization you report into. It only takes one senior leader to make your department miserable. I switched departments a few years ago and was relatively happy before. But not now!

Cons

The company is unstable, quietly laying off over 700 associates last October; this is the third round of layoffs since I began work there in 2010. Attrition has been extremely high at the Sr. Leadership level; over half of the CEO's direct reports are new to the company within the last few years. Of course any turnover is always followed by the "everything's fine" email or meeting. The health benefits are also horrible. Extremely high (over $1k a month for a family) monthly premiums, PLUS a deductible, PLUS 20% coinsurance. And that's their best plan! Anyone with ongoing medical problems knows that's completely unaffordable. The performance management system is garbage too, forcing associates into "distribution buckets" (you could be an awesome worker, but if they need someone to go into the "inconsistent" bucket, it could be you!). Capital One preaches diversity of thought and it's always about "the associates" in the annual strategy meetings, but it's all a bunch of b.s. The dumb ones just eat it up, though! For the record, I'm super low on the totem pole. I've always been rated a v. strong or strong and have no issues with my manager. I'm just not stupid, I see the writing between the lines and I don't feed into the crap that others do. If you don't work in Richmond (their biggest campus) you miss out on 90% of the "perks" that make this company one of "Fortune 100's Best Companies to Work For".

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