Bloomberg reviews

This really is a nasty, nasty place. Dull, tedious workload, unnecessarily long hours with absolutely no give and all take, inward-facing approach with no regard for customers whatsoever, micromanaging middle management whose only specialist skills are brown-nosing. Think Lord of the Flies - a kid in charge of the other kids and not a colouring in book in sight. The company prides itself on growing organically, so it never gets any fresh ideas in, and subsequent generations of middle managers just follow the status quo. Oh, and factor in the several sizes of new trousers you'll need to buy as you get fatter and fatter from misery-eating.

1. Personality cult - Mike Bloomberg is a demi-god in there.. Doctoroff, present CEO tries to steer the company the same way MB did. 2. No need for your input - just do your job. All decisions are centralized and structure is anything but flat. 3. Every now and then the management falls into panic mode, typically because sales figures etc are sliding. This results in pointless call campaigns and a lot of effort going into justifying every single thing you do. (to prove you're generating value) 4. If you're thinking about their grad scheme - the "Sales and Analytics" programme - don't do it. For the next 1.5-2 years you will be stuck in a Bloomberg helpdesk taking 4-8 questions at the same time. These can be anything from pointing a client to a button to answering a pricing question. I've seen 50% of a graduate intake QUIT in the middle of the training! NEVER, EVER have I seen this at any other company. 5. Company is split 50/50 between juniors and dinosaurs, you either join and leave quickly or you stay for ages.. Very few people have spent 3-5 years there. Most of them bail within 2 years or you stay for 10, 15 or 25. 6. Work is minimum 10h per day for ALL employees. If you're in sales like I was you will do more frequently. Pay does not match proper financial companies so effectively you do not get compensated for that. 7. Few manage to jump into a decent bank or financial institution. Look this up on LinkedIn yourself: most of ex-Bloomberg staff end up with other vendors (such as Thomson Reuters) or go into never-heard-of small brokerages. 8. All work at Bloomberg revolves around one product - the terminal. All side products are based on the presence of the terminal. This means the company does not need YOU, it needs you to do your work so the product can get better. There is little point in investing a lot in their staff.