vice president

assistant vice president

analyst

senior vice president

software engineer

Citi

DISCLAIMER:  My perceptions below are simply my observations and opinions which have accumulated during my tenure at said company, and have neither been proven legally nor are meant in any way to affect one's perception or opinions of doing business with said company.  

The good:  

I love my co-workers - you simply could not ask for a better group of people by and large-  and my jobs that I have held here have been satisfying.  They have a cafeteria and a work out gym on site.  Benefits are awesome~ health insurance, 401k, stock investing.  They have an over the top charity drive for United Way every year and you can donate pre-tax out of your paycheck.  It is a young at heart culture, and workers of ALL ages, cultures, races and lifestyles are represented.  

Citi encourages volunteer times for workers to give back to the community and gives workers one 8-hour day to do so per year. There are opportunities for some people to carve out their own niche if they like you.  They are very family-friendly, which is nice to see.  Dress is business casual and opportunities for "dress down" passes to be earned by workers.  There are yearly raises with pay scale caps.   Tuition reimbursement is offered.

Citi offers "skip level meetings" with the boss ABOVE your boss, for things such as status meetings on issues and processes.  Most people ARE trying to make things better.

The bad & ugly:  

(Apply disclaimer here, please.)

MY PERCEPTIONS and EXPERIENCE as employee:  Employed currently, LESS THAN 10 years/MORE THAN 2 years:

Management makes it nearly impossible to do things in an efficient manner for the general worker.  Mid-management is basically ineffective and nepotism is in full force. 

It used to take me 15 mins a day to input my daily time worked into their time keeping system; it now takes me 1 hour at minimum.  Seriously.  After keeping track of my time via Excel to the MINUTE (you have to separate productive and non-productive times), AND entering THAT into their time keeping system additionally, they change the system and now log productive times by when one logs into a certain program (that we use all day.)  Mind you we have to log OUT of said program every time we leave the desk (ie., bathroom, meetings, breaks, lunch.)  The longer you're logged into this program, the more it counts against you for your efficiency at the end of the month on your scorecard.  It is NOT a good indicator of one's efficiency since there are SO MANY other steps to our process that have to be effected.  If that confused you, add on top of that so many changes coming down the pike that we cannot keep track of them all.  Workers simply do not have TIME to read all of the updates and emails regarding specific processes:  unproductive time counts against our scorecards.

So let me further explain:  Unproductive time counts against us, AND if we stay logged in as "productive" all day, the larger amount of logged productive time counts against our final scores.  

What was relatively frustrating at start has become an overwhelming amount of blatant ignorance, as mid-to low management tries to decide how to keep themselves relevant at the expense of efficiency of the regular worker and cost to the shareholders, clients and/or customers, and become one of the reasons I am seeking other employment.  Six Sigma would have a FIELD DAY with this place - and would likely walk out.  

Policy tells workers that if we have a problem, contact HR and the managers claim "open door policy", however, I have never seen a positive outcome for any worker who has had a legitimate issue.  At the very LEAST, you're "unofficially blackballed*" (*not proven but perception and experience says otherwise) and at the most you might be fired.  They do not like to fire, per se, and will most likely put a worker on a "disciplinary plan".  

Citi's handbook and vision statement says it is "a meritocracy" (meaning, every person is judged based on his or her merit.)  Last month, my team got 2/3 of our scorecard (that's 67% of one's scorecard) as "across the board" scores, meaning, they were not individually-earned scores, they were team scores.  That is NOT a meritocracy.   But that is okay because next month the criteria for scorecards will change yet AGAIN, just as it has each month of the last four months.  Reviews happen monthly.

Thoughts to pass along additionally:  Having a college education does not get you farther up the ladder if you're not "in".  Masters degrees are paid same as Bachelor's - It's a job scale pay.  If your job is (example) level 10, you're not paid more because you have a MA degree and co-worker in your level does not.  It's the same pay for the whole level.  

In summary:

If you were in a war and you kept changing the game plan, your soldiers would have no confidence and you would never accomplish the objective.  

Buy some Tums and Mylanta before embarking upon employment here.  

Don't eat the pizza.

Learn to like construction paper.

The training is easily the most enjoyable. At least the first half of training, the second half is mostly just doing the job itself. So at first things are easy going, and you'll just be learning some things in class with a group of about 15 or so other folks — mostly learning about credit cards and everything that goes into them as far as authorized users primary user interest rules and regulations of compliance quizzes and courses to take as well. During that initial 6 weeks you will have a dedicated trainer that is essentially your teacher for that time as well as your boss. Unfortunately for my group we got a trainer who was unnecessarily tough & vindictive. He actually made us keep our cameras on our laptops focused on us whilst we were at home on Fridays, doing solo work, and if we had to get up for any reason whether it was to use your bathroom in your own house or to get a glass of water you had to let everyone know in chat and. Also, he was ridiculous with punctuality. One trainee got put on a "performance improvement plan" for having to attend a doctor's appointment, despite giving a heads-up and bringing documentation. 

You only get 30 minutes for lunch and that means 29 minutes really by the time everyone has filtered out of the classroom to the hallway. On site, they have a really nice cafeteria with tons of good choices. Problem is, order your food had it made and pay by the time you sit down you have to be back in class in less than 10 minutes. It is so unfortunate that city only gives you 30 minutes for lunch whilst having such pleasant in-house facilities — you really don't get to enjoy it. It was very common for me to sit down to eat and have to be back in class within 8 minutes.

You'll start to take calls at about the 4th week, and it'll start slow but quickly pick up the pace within the next few days. This is where the job really begins…  So that's final week is pretty much 8 hours on the phone's 5 days a week. So after the 6 weeks of training you will go into what is called the nesting phase which is another 4 weeks. It's the same schedule as you're training, except now you are working from home two days a week and from the site 3 days a week. This is the real deal. After this 4 weeks goes by and assuming you haven't dropped the ball, yet then you go to full remote.

Here is the deal breaking with this position… You will essentially never get a meager 15 seconds between any two phone calls. That's not exaggeration, it's non-stop and it's endless. Sometimes you just want to put your head in your hands and take a few moments to yourself just not think about anything, but you can't do that because as soon as the caller hangs up another one's right there saying hello. It's endless, and you can never get caught up.

Compounding on that is the incredible micromanaging attitude that is pervasive in this job. The metrics that they have are actually difficult to meet even for people who are diligent in their work. If you don't need them you will get a talking to, it's not fun, and if you still can't meet them after some time after that they will let you go. They do not hesitate to fire people here they don't care a bit. That leaves me to another issue. The turnover here is high, very high. The reason is a combination of the endless calls and the micromanaging through metrics. The micromanaging is so bad that they actually have artificial intelligence to aid the managers keeping track of your work. What does this look like in practice? Well you have to have a certain positive cheery tone when you're interacting with customers for the entirety of your shift. If you sound monotone this will reflect negatively, and you'll be in hot water.

It's not so easy as you might think, to meet these metrics you have to consciously 100% of the time be thinking about it and put forth effort to sound happy-go-lucky. Might be easy for one two or three calls but after your 50th call it's really not something you feel like doing at that point. If you have a customer that doesn't sound happy because that also gets factored into your score, and sometimes it's just completely out of your control, but you'll still get a talking to which can and does lead to dismissal.

To get anywhere out of this position you have to stay there for at least a year post nesting. Nobody wants to do this for half that time even. Lastly, this A.I. will be swiftly taking over this position. I highly doubt in 5 years that people will still be working in this position, so it's a dead end job.

This position required a high amount of training, Certification and Specialized knowledge. The pressure to perform was immense and the style of micromanaging even in a Work at home environment was punitive at best.

 There was no consideration for the ability to utilize judgment , thinking or decision making. 

The fact that this was a Work at home position, did in no way  compensate or reflect  the Heavy compliance tasks and metrics  that were required everyday and changeable daily. 

I was a consistent high performer collecting an average of 260K per hour. I did receive bonuses most months based on performance.

My position  was as Front Line Problem Solver who was required to give many Options and Solutions, as well as to Educate customers  who were in  Serious Default and Foreclosure on their Home  mortgages within a metric of 7-11 minutes per call.

 In addition, I collected large payments to cure defaults, collected income and expenses from each customer within guidelines to set up Repayment plans to cure defaults within Compliance Guidelines for that particular type of loan  such as FHA, FNMA, FHLMC, CBNA , VA and private investor loans.

 Additionally I ran customers through the Mortgage Assistance Tool to determine initial eligibility for Loan Modifications or Restructuring to lower the interest rate and payments and to bring accounts current with a new doable payment to prevent Foreclosure. 

I interfaced with 3rd party Vendors, Attorneys representing customers, as well as HUD counselors to assist in resolving the customer accounts. 

Heavy communication with Customers, 3 way conference calls,  heavy phone usage and coordination between other Citi departments as needed to resolve the issues as needed. 

Department Meetings were held remotely utilizing call in Conference lines and Go to meeting . 

Additionally in between work , Many hours of heavy online  training was required in order to keep  Certifications , Security requirements , and Licensing coursework up to date on a yearly basis. 

I utilized Citrix Dashboard to Main Frame system, Citlink, Online Collections System OCS, Default Recovery Information system (DRI) , Filenet to access scanned  imaged documents, and the GPS Payment System to process payments electronically, Global Payment System. 

All training was completed in the GLMS, Global Learning Management System. 

This was a very Fast Paced, High Volume,  Highly Technical, complex, Multifaceted position which requires years of experience to Master, heavy volumes of information to learn , absorb, and implement on a daily basis as well as Licensing as an MLO, or Licensed Mortgage Originator of which I have held since DEC 2011 . 

The most enjoyable part of this position was Educating people, as well  as encouraging and assuring them that most of the time there would be a solution for them and they would be able to move forward. Their response was one of gratefulness and relief that they were finally able to speak with someone who could give them the information they needed to make good decisions for their lives. This was the intangible reward I received. I believe that I helped thousands of people save their homes. 

Having the opportunity to work from home and be accountable and self managed regarding time and performance was also excellent .

The hardest part of this job was constantly being told by supervisors that the time it took to complete and call was never fast enough . This was down to the seconds and daily. This created a  very unnecessary stressful environment for an already stressful job with unrealistic expectations. There was no such thing as positive feedback , only negative.

As a Senior Executive Assistant, I was one of the youngest Assistants at such a high level, I moved up to that level very quickly during my tenure at Citi. I was specifically requested by the Chief Risk Officer of International Cards to work for her; an offer impossible to refuse, after only 2 years of working for Citi.

I learned much about the corporate culture while at Citi, as my background had been 100% theatre management and production up until I started working at Citi. I learned that being the assistant to an Executive Head within an organization as large as Citi required much "finesse" and the importance of the organizational structure in a culture that was so heavily balanced upon senior management.

While starting as an Executive Assistant (from a temp position supposed to last only two weeks) and moving very, VERY quickly up the chain to Senior Executive Assistant (the highest classification as an assistant), I learned that the senior executive management NEEDED to BE managed, in order to manage themselves. They needed a strong, dependable right hand person that they could trust to put the correct presentations into their hands and walk into a meeting and never even look at the presentations. To work for such high management required a high level of personnel management of the management, and part of that required oneself to have the answers ready before the questions were asked.

As the youngest Senior Executive Assistant, it was difficult to connect with the other assistants, most of whom had grandchildren, or at least grown children my age of their own - we did not have much in common. I made sure to keep my nose clean, to not get involved in gossip and to help out and assist in anyway possible.

The hardest part of the job was to stay busy; I have a voracious appetite for work and would plow through my daily duties typically before most people arrived/the work day began. I would never leave for the day without making sure that everything needed for the following day had been done, in case of emergency. I quickly reached the ceiling for each assistant position due to my fast paced, and accurate, nature of working. I also was the first assistant to request a Blackberry to stay on top of requests and business needs; I requested home access into not only my work computer, but my boss' as well (with their permission, of course) to change calendar items and read email while at home at night or on weekend, as well as when working offsite's when I would be away from home and office for a few days; I also was one of the first to have my office phone lines directed to my cell phone (and eventually when they switched over to internet based phone line had a work phone installed in my home). All of this to stay tuned in and connected to my job for my boss. I have always formed close bonds with my employer's...they trust me and know that I have only THEIR best interests at heart.

The most enjoyable part of the job was when I would be so busy I would not be able to stop for lunch (which was always at my desk anyway, brought from home), although I would miss my beloved lunchtime yoga sessions, and would stay for hours after the "typical" work day was done. The highlight of working at Citi was when my managers (the top senior management OF Citigroup) would recognize my need for more challenging work and would grant me additional duties, such as supervision of over 20 other administrative assistants, contract oversight, Expense Policy Expertise, Commodity Approval for Senior Executive Management, amongst other additional duties.

My experience with Citi has been bittersweet. I really love the vacation time I have earned over the years, over 3 weeks, almost 4 when you add in floating holidays. Keep in mind as you read this that much of my experience at Citi is from a Customer Service background, mostly on the phones taking inbound calls. Customer Service can be difficult no matter what company you are working for. Someone applying for a different position within Citi may have a totally different experience than I have. Those working in Customer Service often deal with a variety of situations, that can include lots of irate customers who can be demanding and verbally abusive to you at times. A big part of being successful in a Customer Service environment is that you have to let a lot of things people say roll of your shoulders, this can sound easier than it really is. Not every caller is rude, angry, or demanding. In fact, the vast majority in my experience just need help with something and you are there to help them. I currently work in Online Support, which while still on the phones feels more rewarding because I feel like I have really helped someone by the end of the call. There are lots of websites managed by Citi, so I am constantly busy taking calls and managing website issues that may arise. If you are on the phones, it can be very busy at times where the calls are back to back, sometimes for the whole day. This can mentally wear you down, especially if you are dealing with a lot of irate customers. However, there are also slow times where you will wait for calls and have a little down time to feel less overwhelmed and take a minute to breathe and compose yourself for the next caller. This is definitely not my ideal position, I started with Citi when the company I was working for closed the office I was working at and so I had to find a new job pretty quickly. I have been with Citi for several years and feel I have found my niche in Online Support where the job doesn't feel quite so bad. There are many times where I feel really good when I have helped someone resolve the issue they were facing online. The management is good overall. That being said, if you are on the phones, your calls will be monitored and sometimes how you are reviewed will depend on the manager who is reviewing your call. There is definitely a lot of room for manager discretion during call monitors and sometimes it feels that some managers have different standards than others. There are things that Citi looks for in every call and there are set standards, but there seems to be a lot of room for discretion in these standards. Citi is a large company and often times it feels like decisions are made that may drastically affect customers, without full consideration to consequences. While there are yearly surveys called Voice of the Employee that ask for employee opinion, it still feels that you are representing a company but have little say in what happens. I realize that this may be true of any employee/owner relationship, but it seems especially true at Citi compared to other companies I've worked for. At times it seems there are so many moving parts to Citi, that it is harder to manage all of them efficiently and to really gain employee opinion concerning how Citi's decisions may affect Customers and the employees themselves.

My time at Citi has been a truly wonderful learning experience. I cannot put into words all the things I've learned, not just about how credit works, but also the ins and outs of working for such a huge corporation. My teammates are amazing, and no matter how long one of the employees has worked there, each of us is willing to share whatever information and knowledge we have, and cheer each other on. A lot of this I would think is due to our manager who tries really hard to motivate the team to get their numbers up, and even when someone isn't making never looks down on them or publicly shames them. He simply pulls them in his office, explains what's going on, and sees what's going on with the representative that is getting in the way of their performance before asking what he can do to improve the situation. A typical day is coming in, having 10 minutes to set up your workstation, before logging into the phones for the rest of your shift. You're only allowed to log off when it is your scheduled break time, if a manager calls you into their office, or the occasional account maintenance or equipment failure. The most enjoyable part of my day has to be all the additional work I get to do on behalf of my manager. I am one of our teams focals, and so it is my job to remind my teammates of any pending callbacks they have and assist them with any questions they may have in doing said call back. The hardest part of my job has to be that I see no future not only with this company, but I also do not see where the company has a very bright future themselves. When I interviewed I let it be know that I was looking to go into working with computers, and wanted to work my way up to a position either in their tech support for customers, their internal IT dept, or the web/software development. Everyone I spoke with seemed very excited about my ambitions within the company. It wasn't until after I not only was hired, but had completed my two months of training that I learned every position I had expressed interest in working towards was an outside contracting position and the only way I'd ever be eligible for such positions was to quit my job as a customer service representative, and apply from the outside for one of those positions. It was very disheartening. Then after a few months of working hard trying to decide on a new job path at Citi I saw them start to write up as many reps as they could for any and everything, say like being 3 minutes over your unplanned time. That news was followed by learning that they had lowered the starting pay rate for the job, by over a dollar. While my pay is secure, it is very scary to think what will happen when everyone seems to be getting in trouble for something, and the pay is being decreased. This news was recently followed by the announcement that they were changing the bonus structure, and everyone would be getting bigger bonus, as long as you met the higher call requirement. The new call requirement is four times what it used to be, and as a result reps who work early in the morning or late at night, like myself, no longer meet the minimum calls necessary to buns, for no other reason then calls just don't come back to back when we work. We do have the possibility to switch to another shift should one open up, but working outside the typical 8am-5pm hours means we also get a shift differential pay, and many of us cannot afford giving that up for the hope of a bonus. As I said previously, I have learned a tremendous amount form my time at Citi, but given the direction of things, I believe it is in my best interest to leave quickly.

A typical day at work begins with the drive to the work site.  I go through the security door and am usually greeted warmly by a professional security guard at the desk.  I then proceed to my desk/station and take out my banana, then grab my Citi logo (and incredibly faded coffee mug) and head to the break room where I pour myself a freshly made cup of coffee.  I then return to my computer and begin the logging in process.

Once logged in, I review any needed alerts, emails and am ready to take calls.  My typical day revolves around handling upset customers who are danger close to losing their homes due to a plethora of unfortunate and sometimes unpreventable circumstances.  I engage the customers, work with other departments and do my best to find solutions and assist with the home retention/loss mitigation process.  On my breaks I generally catch up socially via the facebook and smartphone or take care of errands, emails and calls I need to make.

Upon returning to work I am often called into my boss's cubicle to discuss calls that were monitored by him, by our quality and assurance department and identify ways to improve.

Sometimes we will have team meetings or company wide meetings in which we will discuss changes to the company, changes to procedure or take care of any compliance training and generally all opportunities to be away from the phone are warmly welcomed.  

Once my shift is over and I have received my last call for the day, I log out, make sure my exceptions were keyed (any time I was not logged into the phone system) and say a heartfelt goodbye to the security guard and make my break for freedom.

My management is there to ensure compliance of schedule, OCC regulatory compliance and also to assist us in getting stronger as agents.  Our welfare is definitely uppermost in their minds and due to the turn over rate of any call center, those of us that stick around are generally valued.

My coworkers all express distaste in working on the phones but with our group chats, emails and team meetings we are able to commiserate and return to work each day knowing that seeing another comrade in the fight allows us to prolong our own. Good people work at Citi.  Hands down.

The hardest part of my job, other than being a phone cord chained verbal punching bag is not being able to follow through with the customer.  When their home is at stake, how the loan modification process works, why it appears to not work and all of the behind the scenes steps it takes to get to a modification isn't on their minds.  The stress of everything else going wrong in their life, is and aside from taking thorough notes and doing my best to assist the customers to the best of my ability, the inability to follow up with them kills me.

The most enjoyable part of my job is I have a job.  I have 14 days paid vacation, 5 days of "uh oh" time off and am able to observe most of the holidays.  The ones that I cannot, are made up for in "floating holidays."  I have a 401k, benefits and a health savings account, all very crucial necessities in life.  I feel valued, am challenged and if I stick it out long enough I may find myself off the phones and into a salary based position but I am not getting any younger and I have mountains to move.  

If you're reading this and are contemplating a career with Citi, look passed the "customer service" and see the whole picture.  Citi is a great place to work.

It all depends what business division you work in. The bonuses are (generally) laughable for a fortune 500 company. That is a reflection of upper management's structuring of the particular division you work in and MOST keep the money at the top.  If you get anything, know you are  reimbursed in bonuses based on your pay scale, not on the work you do nor the performance. Literally I have gotten nothing for doing a good job here. I have known personnel who get top ranked (and they watch how many of those they give out) and they have gotten nothing. Again, laughable. What's worse? The employees just stay here. Many jobs are very simple, boring even. But then others, you are overworked and earning your boss' paycheck.  Scope creep is rampant as a lot of management can talk great strategy but cannot execute their way out of a wet paper bag. The hardest part to deal with is politics and employees not willing to help one another, which is not always 100% prevalent; however, it is a lot of the organization. They talk about digitization and next level for the future, but they execute poorly,if ever. Talented, younger folks who are smart leave quickly. So then the same outdated ideas for people that started years ago is the population that end up staying here. And people stay here for years upon years upon years. The benefits (time off, insurance) are really really great - but know you also pay into insurance depending on your pay range. And when you take time off, it's a load to catch up on when you return. The culture speaks to keeping up with the market and talks about appreciating employees, but it's talk. Then for some positions here, there is exactly the opposite - there are jobs that you can have that are completely demanding and you don't have time to breathe.  In my experience, it has been a serious lack of training and if/when you bring that up, it is dismissed by management (I've experienced that in two different divisions).  You can be questioned on how you do things - which I had never experienced in the over 20 years of professional job experience elsewhere - but it's happened here a couple of times in a few divisions. Performance management is a joke here. They have "calibrations" where managers go into a meeting to "fight" for who gets the x # of top tier recommendations and % of increase or bonus, if any, for that department. This process is done before the employee does their input on what they've done so it is an irrelevant process that you are forced to do.  Performance management is totally a subjective process by your management.  So you best bet is to play the game and smile and be a yes man in order to be ranked well. It is not objective in any fashion. They are currently "strategically" reshifting jobs to less pay areas to save money and getting rid of folks that have years of experience so there is change occurring. Mind you, nothing about that strategy is communicated so "transparency" is a joke here. And, to add to all of this, they are moving many offices to "shared space" to save money on seating.  So you come into an agile environment even if you aren't a part of such a team. It leads to not being able to hear on calls and more people wanting days to work from home, which is micromanaged by many departments.

********DO. NOT. WORK. HERE.******

 I know this is a long review, but please read the whole thing before you get yourself into this mess.I quit on the spot without any sort of prospect for a new job, because I couldn't take it anymore. There's a reason why they have such a high turnover rate!

The job title is "Cash and Collateral Analyst", but let me tell you, you don't analyze anything. All you are ask to do is cash a customer out of their stock/bonds or process the money they are putting in.

This may seem like a simple and appealing job, but it is NOT at all. Where to begin...

First:

 training is terrible. Your co-workers train you, which could be fine. But they go too fast and get irritated if you ask them to slow down. Due to the amount of information that you need to memorize, this can be cumbersome, but don't dare ask the same question twice, or they'll get irritated.

Two: 

management does not get the concept of if you aren't taught something, you will not know it. I can't tell you how many times I got a phone call or pulled aside yelling at me, asking why i did not do something. When I would simply say "I was never told to do that, or shown how to do that" they don't apologize, but simply say "oh, well you should have....just known?." I don't know, there were some things that I was so frustrated with this, that I nearly walked out. There is no training plan at all. They just show you how to do it once or twice and then say "have fun!"

Management treats you like you are inferior to the entire team. I stayed on thinking that once I got the hang of it, I would be ok. NOPE! If you don't remember something, don't ask them or they will criticize you for not remembering it. 

Oh, and if a client screws something up, and you have proof it was their fault and not yours....DOESN'T MATTER! you will still get all of the blame! YAY!

Also, don't ask your co-workers for anything! If you do, then you will hear the sound of irritation in their voice and the whispers as they mock you behind your back. (After I had been there for a few months, I could see and hear them mocking new hires, so I'm assuming they did so for me.)

Finally, you got that dinner date tonight? Forget it. You got a family engagement to get to? Forget it. You may be scheduled to work until 5, but if they spring a new thing for you to do at 4:55, they fully expect you to stay until it's done. Even if it's something you could do the next day or even if that means staying until 8pm. So cancel your plans, the only thing that matters is this job.

Oh, and if you actually do finish your work and are able to leave on time, you can feel the daggers of people's eyes behind you as they're stuck there to do work.

Also, they really love to bother you by calling you on your day off for stuff, including when you're having a nice dinner with the family. I'm convinced they wanted people to not take off as much as possible, so they would just bug you on days off, so you don't.

Again, I can't stress this enough. They want this job to be the only thing that matters to you. They pretend you can have a social life, but you better constantly be excited to stay for an additional 3 hours when needed. I would leave work loaded with anxiety and dreading having to go in the next day.

Citi has more red tape than any other bank I've worked for, and politics throughout.  Compared to other companies I have worked for, things at Citi take a lot longer to get done and responses from other teams are hard to come by if you aren't above a certain job title. The political games weren't initially noticeable, but they've been getting bolder, especially with the recent layoffs and cuts. If you have a senior leader(MD level) who is willing to stand up for your team and be a shield from the political games, you will probably have a good overall work experience, but that can be hard to find.

Communication and information from the top is scarce at best, especially when there is unrest and major changes being made. Return to office was communicated quite harshly, yet the threats made were never detailed and explained to staff to know what they were expected to do, and what repercussions would be if they did not follow these expectations. Similar case with the changes recently being made, both organizational and the cuts in staff being made. No details other than "We are transforming", and staff have no end vision to rally around, which has kept employees from understanding why and how things are changing. And if it isn't understood, how can support for it be expected?

Pay- The big topic everywhere. Average at best. Other banks are similar, albeit a bit higher. Outside of finance, though, is another story and there are much better paying companies out there. As for bonuses, they're really at senior managements discretion, which comes back to the need for your specific senior leader to fight for your team. The annual bonus isn't great, but it's something and I'll take something over nothing any day. 

Work/life balance has also dropped lately, given the layoffs and budget cuts. Many are having to do the jobs of multiple people as natural attrition happens, but hiring new people isn't being allowed. That said, dependent on manager and line of business, there can be a lot of autonomy. In general, I am left to get my job done as I see fit, except when it comes to location/office attendance. Nobody checks the number or schedule of hours worked, so long as you are getting your work done acceptably.

So far this all sounds rather pessimistic, and the trajectory of things has been downward in many ways, but it isn't all doom and gloom. There are good options for education reimbursement, free learning courses available on Udemy and Degreed, as well as savings perks on everyday life like car buying, cell phone, utilities, and entertainment. The global nature of the corporation and being in the industry also means that there is a lot of opportunity for networking and mentorship, which is invaluable for those earlier on in their careers. 

This is just my personal experience, and it could be completely different for others. If nothing else, I hope this helps prospective employees ask the right questions before accepting or denying an offer to work at Citi. 

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