GOLDMAN SACHS INTERNATIONAL  Reviews

I currently work in FICC sales and just +12 hours a day doing this BS. You get a nice salary OK but... I'll probably be making £200-230k this year? However, looking at it from a distance, it's soberly BS.

I tell this to my friends in sales and they look at me like I'm crazy who wants more from his career.
We are operational monkeys - harsh reality - besides money.
Traders, customers and senior sales people are all shouting at you and you have no influence on anything because they also know that your work is usually BS.

It's a glorious operational role, no matter how hard they try to hide it.

For example, 80% of my day consists of:
1. Get customer inquiry from Bloomberg chat
2. Copy and paste into chat with traders
3. Paste the price back to the customer
4. Complete the trade, then send a confirmation email with details, make sure all operations are completed, make sure the middle office is performing their tasks correctly, upload trades to the centralized clearing system.
5. Rinse, repeat.

Advantages? Less stress, no risk, so limited defects, customer trips.
Work like Minions in cartoons, saw even mascots of them at few desks.

Either way, I'm leaving London this year and I couldn't be happier with this decision. Operational work is a job that an average person can learn with appropriate training. Interestingly, here in the back office, much more is required than from us, supposedly we work in a bank and few people are financiers, it is easier to describe us as process operators.

The biggest GS problem is that there is no meritocracy. Having worked in IB for more than 15years, I’ve seen tremendous injustices in terms of promotions, pay, and culture. (deleted by the administrator) is now difference.HR tends to recruit mix of brilliant people, which we can divided into 2 categories:
- superbly educated and mediocre ones too (mostly with bought MBAs, not even target, expensive ones, as we are seeing many random, non-name candidates).Being superb, CFA , Phd technical is a deep liability because you’re expected to stay quiet and just churn out work.
- Administrators, corp. sliders based on bosses liking than skills. Conversely, the people who are incapable of producing quality work are assigned “softer jobs” such as going to meetings, presenting to higher ups, and eventually managing others. Sooner or later all the “smart” people end up reporting to people who don’t understand the business but are good at sucking up to their boss. Those mainly have MBAs, so they aren't experts at all from anything...if you think 1 yrs programme will make you a leader in banking you are irrational, especially without ground knowledge which only qualifications and even masters provides.

I don’t have an axe to grind, and actually think this culture has helped my career. In fact it is a great place to learn and grow if you have luck to deal with 1st category! Provided exit opportunities (if you are not too old - age bias) Hedge Funds etc in my case.The common misconception is it is difficult not being sb protégé. Well, I was recruited by direct HR approach last year (typically for +VP grades)
However, I can call myself very lucky as HR on-board me although:
- I was disciplinary terminated, (deleted by the administrator) in 15’ focusing on the last employer instead, recommendation. Lucky this hasn’t impacted my screening, most banks perform much detailed checks further in history!
- I'm 100% non-TARGET (Uni, MBAs, background etc)I have low (3.6/5.0)M.Sc. Marketing/Accounting of Eastern Europe non target even there, 2nd degree- but never finished back at home, started ACCA which failed after 1st exam, same goes to FCA etc. An obvious trick was do buy instead MBA(nb fails those!) the cheapest London’s MBA(100% pass rates+ CMI incl. for free) nb cares, West London at the end my programme which I had to extended, luckly merged with City Uni - what confused HR as it is still same low quality with other slightly better label).
Most banks won’t even care about those, somehow GS/Morgan HR’s need tick this off for any promotion, won’t even consider it as any value as you can easily cheat and outsource most assignments to copywriters like most ppl did. Professional qualification in other hand requires sacrifice doing everything all exams by yourself, what was/is challenge for expats not fluent in English. Have you wondered why some EDs having very weak education like me, barely know how to draft an emails and overall suck in communication (now you have an answer) not to mention being threaten by more skilled co-workers?
- I don’t have Russel Group (UK)/Ivy business diploma – nothing further from this in fact, as I have graduated mediocre accounting major in one of Easter European uni, not even the most competitive major to start with, this doesn’t make sense hearing about top schools requirements at all.
- My background by no means wasn’t FO,as I came from generic op. Firmops,CA experience, never been involved in actually sells pitching, direct clients interaction, not like most transfers to FO coming neither Risk or Research, Finance nor Markets exp
- I’m not qualified – neither FCA, FRM, ACCA etc, in fact Analyst, Assoc. I supervise are 2x more technical superb than me, as far my +15 YOE middle/back office operational support goes.
I have started ACCA but failed at 1 exam, started FCA but failed, so MBA with impossible to fail(100% successful rate) at West London was my way around, especially as they merged it with City Uni at final study what confused HR even more and giving other label for quality same school instead.
- CHEAT TRICK there are MBAs and “MBAs”- I have completed the cheapest (budget limitation and language barrier) non-target (some called it Micky Mouse MBA) London’s MBA as typical those throw in meaningless CMI paper incl in price, both nb really cares but HR needs to tick this off – costed +£16k, which was later luckily merged with City Uni.The main requirement was pass basic IELTS test(some might laugh)not like in professional MBA programmes (GMAT) not to mentioning LSE and rest Russel’s Group requirements!
Most of my colleagues @GS have graduated LSE etc (for £110k-140£k eMBA)however due to language, communication I was also forced to use extensive help copywriters(fiverr,gumtee lots of them to choose from) to pass final result. One of advantages MBA over restrict self-study qualification as many people and alumni was doing the same, due to work commitments or just pure laziness etc. MBAs are more restrictive due to their costs not level, as you won’t be banking expert after 1(18mths generic program), of course there are exemptions, not mine.
- My communication skills although average at the best, I have never studied English language as my 1st foreign language, nor eastern accent luckily hasn’t impacted my chances. I know it is huge obstacle in other FS sectors at senior level.
- Finally if I were representing a different sex, probably not meeting diversity targets (GS it is no surprise aims to influx % women giving us a bit blind eye, I wouldn’t stand a chance among male colleagues, with CFAs, LSEs etc)
Overall I’m so grateful and happy that I can lead own team and set own targets as well recruit people suitable for business and my management own personal goals.

Policy vs reality and discrimination (own interest above company's)
“The firm is committed to providing equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all qualified persons …including race, nationality, sex, gender, religion and age.”
Well dead policy, the reality is other way round. So much depends on people. I’m keep telling friends that in this business critical thinking is disadvantageous, there is no space for too old, too experienced candidates as they tend to create leaderships challenges and raising uncomfortable questions about sense and ways of doing things. Craftsmanship speed, accuracy are the most important in this role alongside soft skills managed ( at the end not the most knowledgeable or skilled got promoted!).I personally tend to recruit only young candidates, who are willing to make effort, work long hours and do not challenge supervisors causing unnecessary fractions. Why I would recruit sb you can possess a threat to my role in first place!

Ethics& Integrity:
Neither GS nor my previous bank wouldn’t probably mind if I will admit that I’ve spent few years clamming council social housing benefits as well, living with my further family in their council flat and still work as Director(savings ‘000 in the process, just using loopholes).I simply used an opportunity as I was learnt doing at work and play the game.

To summarize I’m not exactly a raw model for junior colleagues (sometimes) better qualified and technically skilled on the job than me, neither in terms of technicality nor especially ethics at all, but as they came to me and once you are in, who cares!
All of the above are true and rather simple to check, so I hope HR is taking notes. Morgan's HR acknowledged that if they had known much earlier, they would have responded appropriately, as now…now it is yours and only yours problem, more details resurface with BofA being in loop too.
In other words not only geniuses get ED roles but also like my case process masters as I was lucky to work on process in competitive bank they wanted.
Only reason why HR so much lowered a threshold for me and fact I'm a women (as Goldman after lawsuit and paying $215m compensation tries so much to get more women into front office roles)

WARSAW:
Polish entity was opened as management still highlight due to cost savings reasons (labour still cheap, although cost of living in Poland already caught up with some Western Countries!) che3ck m2 square meters vs salaries in Polish GS, compare those with colleagues in Dublin, Zurich or London! Nevertheless breaking into Goldman is the easiest in Warsaw among all European location as ED as example barely met managers levels, most do not have even qualifications, nor financial background (some has diplomas the weakest local unis!) rest bough MBAs which do not provide any banking expertise, above generic 12months most training how to manage people way smarter than yourself.IF you read GS review globally you will notice that people hate having those, unexperienced, unqualified individuals only nominated because being women or etc HR KPIs as lack of competences is easily showing off.
Not surprise some roles import colleagues from India for the same reason, but never ask us from west to consider relocation as assuming we are too overqualified and too expensive for their targets. Well know-how and quality requires cost and can be easily subsidise by cheap and unqualified labour.

Only pros Warsaw is fact is you are liked, if you are networked you can somehow managed at junior level (nb transfer unqualified Polish EDs etc) to other locations which is something standing GS above other banks do not even considering allowing even the brightest minds to make such expensive for them movement. For most they love underpaid great staff working for half what they would have to spend in London or 30% that they pay in New York (US always pays 30-40% better!). If you want to learn from the best than Warsaw is the weakest the bank office now in Europe, you would benefit more breaking into Frankfurt or London, or even small as 20 FTEs Dublin's office.

To summarize over my experience in GS you will see one of the bests in investment banking people (worth to learn from them) qualified, with Phds in narrow quats or IB field and generalist, without any qualifications or bought MBAs (meaningless across even London's banking financial service sector as most banks ignore those, everyone can do them it is a matter of $$ even outsource due to laziness or lack of time most to copy writers). They normally very weak, easy to challenged (reason why most of them will discriminate you feeling being threatened, more skilled than themselves colleagues) use micromanagement and delegating tasks they do not even understand first. We call them self-proclaimed leaders as if not HR mistakes to recruit them they won't stand a change to more rounded and qualified colleagues.
Better choose wisely with who do you want to work as 2 kind will drawn you rather allow you to be promoted...this is a rule as much in London and lower office like Warsaw, the only difference is salaries and recognition as London is recognized globally, when nb ever heard about GS in Poland.