Pros
The benefits. Being able to buy and sell holiday time. HSBC will contribute a minimum amount toward your pension - even if you don't. The people - You're just working with a bunch of friendly regular folk; albeit unambitious ones that seem to think it's normal working for such an awful company 7+ years @ £20k. They prioritise recruiting internally; once you're in, you can "sidestep" in to other jobs they have within the company fairly easily, for example from the mortgages department over to customer services. Pay doesn't vary too much, and there isn't really much benefit outside of finding what you prefer. But they frown upon stepping in to another role before spending at least a year in your current role. Cold heartless corporate feel to the company, there was a girl that had to drive her brothers infant child to hospital as it was having difficulty breathing. She came in 1 hour late to work, they didn't really care about the why, and told her she would need to stay behind and make the time back.
Cons
Dead end - not much progression... You can move up to management if you jump through hoops, but then nothing from there. Starting salary is awful (£16,350... recently upped to £17,350) with little to no pay rise (1-3% if lucky)... When they announce that there will be no pay rises for a particular year I just chuckle to myself... they're one of the biggest banks in the world, I find it hard to believe they did not turn enough of a profit to reward their employees. Lots of office politics involved... favouritism etc. About 80% of the time it's not about how hard you work, it's about making your superiors laugh and enjoy your company. The most successful managers are the ones you see chatting and giggling with other managers. There are seniors that put their heads down and work hard, but are completely overlooked when manager positions open up.