Bank of the changing world - not quite - Assistant Vice President BNP Paribas Employee Review

2.0
Jul 11, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Vacation: AVPs get 6, VPs get 7-8, Directors get 8+ - Health Benefits (Vision, Dental and Health) - 401K (Matching is fairly standard in the industry) - People are generally nice - Work-life balance is much better than American banks in NYC - In July and August people generally take their vacations so it isn't that hectic

Cons

- Way too many layers within the organization.. One person manages another 2 who then manage another 2 people.. makes no sense.. - No management vision is articulated to employees - Too much red-tape / bureaucracy - Nothing happens when it is supposed to .. "this is a french bank, you can't expect fast turn around on anything" is a phrase I always hear. - All key decisions are made in Paris, so you have no visibility - No room to move up, people come here and stay here for years and years - If you are an American you will find it hard to fit in as most management is French - Place is very cliquey - unless you are French, you will be left out - Management doesn't provide direction, no ownership from management to drive the company.. the little guy gets thrown under the bus

Explore other reviews about BNP Paribas

5.0
Jun 9, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great place to work overall

Cons

None I can think ok

1.0
May 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The only good thing about this place were the Nespresso machines.

Cons

I rarely leave reviews, but future job seekers deserve fair warning. From day one, it was clear that micromanagement was a core operating principle here; not a quirk, but a feature. Managers routinely hovered over routine tasks, demanded pointless status updates multiple times a day, constantly changed directives, took credit for my work, and treated experienced professionals like they couldn't be trusted to send an email unsupervised. Any sense of autonomy was purely cosmetic. The culture was equally poisonous. Gossip wasn't background noise; it was practically a department function. Colleagues regularly spoke poorly of one another behind closed doors, cliques formed and hardened fast, and if you weren't part of the right group, you felt it. Unkind doesn't begin to cover it. Basic professionalism and common decency were in short supply. Management set the tone for all of it. Leaders who should have modeled integrity instead participated in the drama, played favorites openly, and addressed conflict with either complete avoidance or outright retaliation. HR was not a resource — it was a shield for bad behavior at the top. I left for my own sanity. The turnover rate here should tell you everything. Life is too short and your career too important to spend either in an environment like this one.

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