Pros: So what's it like working for Goldman Sachs? Well, first things first, I worked in one department of one of the many divisions of GS. GS is a company of well over 30,000 employees. Each division is like a company in and of itself, so generalising an experience even within a single division is fraught with issues. You'll have to take my words in that very narrow context. The Good Probably the best thing about this company is that it is very pro-diversity. They want to create a work environment that mirrors the real world on the outside and they are keen to tap the brain power of the diversity that's out there. While I don't particularly care to know at work what someone gets up to in their own downtime, it's likely to be reassuring to others who are LGBT or of other diverse backgrounds who are looking to their own futures within the firm. To reinforce the firm's commitment, it is mandatory for employees to complete a minimum of 2 hours annual diversity training. I'd say that every person I met at GS was top-notch. There are no village idiots or jokers lurking anywhere. Professionalism is at the core of being a successful employee. I always got the feeling I was rubbing shoulders with the 'A' grade crowd...the Ivy Leaguers. Almost everyone is uber-smart and hyper-keen. If you have an issue and you need someone's help, then most people (though not all) you talk to will make it their mission to help you out. The corporate gym is very well equipped. Great machines, great classes to attend, and cheap membership give you a Reebok-like experience at about half the price. It's a bit weird the first few times you go, as GS optionally lends you a gray t-shirt, gray shorts, and white socks to sweat your stuff in, so no need for you to bring in your smelly sweats to the office (but you will need your own training shoes, as thankfully they are not provided). Membership includes your own private locker, but I never used mine as I'd never want to leave anything sweaty in a locker overnight! Since everyone uses GS sweats, this culminates in a complete lack of gym clothing diversity...it's a sea of gray, and you feel like a platoon infantryman as you wander around the gym floor.

Cons: The Bad Work-life balance. Depending on the division you work in will have a great bearing on how hard you will be expected to work. Miraculously, the department of the division I was in is somewhat chilled out compared to all other parts of the firm I heard about. Most of my colleagues were averaging about 45 hours per week. That's almost unheard of in GS; most colleagues in different divisions were putting down 16-hour days every day as a norm. When you exit the building at 6:30 PM of an evening on your way home, you will pass a swarm of busy bees carrying bags of takeaway food, re-entering the building on their way back to their desks for another 4 or 5 hours of work. These are the eager beavers, and the company rewards this kind of hard work when bonus season comes around in February. If you're not one of these people, then chances are your career is unlikely to reach the stars, to say the least. A 55-hour week is at the very bottom end of the “hard work” spectrum. Read the Forbes article about Liz Beshel to see what the commitment level for success really is at GS if you plan to go beyond the stratosphere at GS. The Ugly Almost every big corporate company shares the same "hard work" traits, but GS effortlessly manages to up the ante to another level: 1) You are always available even when you're on vacation because of the Blackberry phone. You are always just a phone call or an email away from being brought in to help solve the latest problem, no matter what hour of the day it is or what plans you made with your family this weekend. Logging in from home on weekday evenings and on weekends, like everyone else does, is a basic norm at GS. Not responding to a weekend crisis due to a trip away with the family is something to avoid. The company expects performers to be available at all times. 2) When you join the firm, you will spend one day going through 'orientation,' effectively being indoctrinated in all things GS. During this day, you will learn (among other things) about the strength of the GS 'posting culture.' They tell you that everyone posts constantly, and it is expected that you will post constantly as well. Due to the "posting" culture at GS, your inbox will quickly overflow every single workday, so mastery of Outlook will go some way towards managing it, but in reality, most folk put in additional evening work hours to get on top of it all. The signal-to-noise ratio is generally appalling from middle management upwards. 3) As if email traffic wasn't a bad enough problem to manage, they have recently added 2 more mountains for the GS information worker to scale, neither of which are interconnected. i. First up, GSConnect is the internal social network – think Facebook meets LinkedIn meets Goldman Sachs (it's built on top of the popular Jive social platform). This is a reputation (points)-based platform for everyone to hear about what everyone else is up to in the firm and chime in with comments, articles, advice, and tips. For many folk at GS, this is a great means for marketing one's own skills within the firm. Being seen to continually contribute to the team and the firm will get you noticed. But like any social platform, it is a double-edged sword that could easily destroy one's reputation in a heartbeat. Not being seen to actively contribute will come back to haunt the employee at review time and therefore at bonus time. ii. Second up, LiveCurrent is the new instant chat program that you will need to be seen participating in. This is a place to share information in a more immediate manner with the GS hive. It's nothing more than chat rooms. LiveCurrent is a basic annoyance as pop-up toast interrupts the working day continuously with banal updates from various leaders. 4) GS meetings are primarily all about asking questions. If you want to succeed at GS, you need to practice this art to perfection. Unfortunately, most meetings are a waste of time, but there is no throttle to control them other than to decline them, but not being seen to be participating will come at a price during the annual review process. Most meetings result in more noise, be it email trail, GSConnect, or LiveCurrent - trying to stay on top of the noise is challenging, to say the least. 5) Consensus-driven culture. The orientation day will inform you that there is no such thing as a 'star' performer at GS because everyone operates in a team, and therefore the team is the 'star.' Not only that, but you will now have to get used to “building consensus” on a very regular basis. You will get praise for being seen to round up the herd and get buy-in from everyone for decisions of any magnitude, and that is the problem. Typically (outside of GS), most people naturally seek consensus when there are big decisions, but GS has promoted consensus-building to a first-class citizen within the firm, so even small decisions get quickly bogged down with the basic requirement to build consensus. 6) The 360-degree annual review. This is a 2-month grueling process imposed on everyone at GS that is taken very seriously by all. It is essential to have mended all fences with your colleagues at least 2 months before the review process starts, or suffer the wrath of their short-term memory. The official word from management is that the review process does not affect your bonus, which is very hard to believe. 7) Unofficially, GS has currently different levels that are **due to be disbanded**. The levels are as follows: Analyst, L1, L2, L3, M1, M2, Partner. If you are being hired currently, be sure to ask the level you are being hired at because they won't tell you unless you ask, and it will take you a month or so after being hired before you find out this information, and by then it will be too late to change it (you will have to wait for the annual promotions for which you have to be nominated first). To give you an idea, L2 is someone with 5 years' experience. Levels are not advertised internally at all, so you will have no idea what level other people are at unless you have the conversation. Being hired in at the right level will influence the compensation bracket you fall into, so it's reasonably critical to know - you want to come in at a level that truly reflects your skills and abilities. A key point to make here is that the levels are due to be disbanded very soon (or it may already have taken place since I am an ex-employee). It's worth mentioning that VP (Vice President) is merely a badge of honor at GS, not a level as just discussed. Therefore, it is of no consequence to your compensation, so bartering for VP with HR is nowhere near as important as bartering for level since only the latter will have any impact on your compensation profile. So now you know. 8) With no one knowing what level anyone else is at, you won't be surprised to hear that GS has no org chart. So you will have no idea who reports in to whom. This can be very confusing, and the idea is to reduce structure in a bid to allow ideas to easily bubble up. If you are used to a classical hierarchy where you report into one boss who defines what is required of you, then beware, as it doesn't work like that at GS. When you add up the time spent processing the ever-flowing fountain of information, you will soon notice that you have no time to do the job you were actually hired for, unless you plan on working evenings, because only then can you actually get some work done once the crescendo of information dies down for a few precious hours. Stealing your way into work by 7:30 AM will also buy useful time before the noise starts up again. With the banking sector having effectively destroyed itself from its own deregulated excesses of the 2000s era, it's worth noting that remuneration packages were substantially reduced as a result. It's fair to say that most employees will not climb any higher than middle management (L2 is the de facto level at GS), and it's only after middle management that game-changing compensation starts to kick in. Assuming you were to get to that point, consider carefully the time that will need to be sacrificed in your life (especially family life) and weigh up the pros and cons. If you get an offer from GS, then that itself tells you something useful: you are, by definition, a high-caliber individual since very few candidates get an offer from GS. With that in mind, why not consider channeling your highly rated skill-set (and GS is excellent at gauging skill-sets) into joining a fun start-up (GS is not a fun place to work, by the way)? Or if you have a groundbreaking idea, why not start your own startup?

Pros: Decent office location (at least in Tokyo). Some smart colleagues around.

Cons: Dev people are doing first-line support instead of development. Job may be different from the description you get from your hiring manager. Late conf calls, long hours. Be prepared to learn and use slang for development (ancient property language and environment) - pretty much a worthless skill outside of GS.

Pros: Good brand name. Good pay for some who get it.

Cons: Hectic, boring work life. No career growth. Legacy and redundant technologies.