Pros
The name is still good on the CV, apparently. For reasons that escape me. There is a healthy work-life balance, shown in spades by the fact that even the MDs have started leaving at 3pm on a Friday afternoon now. If they don't care, the rest of us certainly shouldn't. A BIG pro is that there is no downside to doing a bad job! No, really. None whatsoever. People are never fired from Barclays Wealth if they're not pulling their weight. They're tolerated for years on end until they get paid off with a fat redundancy cheque whilst those of us STUPID enough to hang around and do some work get paid a bonus which is less that these lazy people got paid on a tax-free basis for being laid off.
Cons
The best reasons would be to witness - first hand - what a chicken does after the head has been cut off. Of course, not all chickens are born into this world equal. Barclays Management chickens, however, are given bottomless pits of money to buy in expensive management consultants who will go out and interview the staff and then repackage their own employee's advice as their own. And then set a new "Strategy". Yay! New strategy! Expect that - and this is the brilliant bit - none of the Senior Leaders want to taste their own cooking. We have lost three very senior people in the space of a month. The Financial Times noted this, as did everyone else. Every couple of weeks, we get another banal email from the "Leadership" team about the latest changes to team structure, reporting lines, brand of tea..... My simply advice would be - STOP WITH THE COMMS AND START DELIVERING SOME ACTUAL STRATEGY. This is a uniquely "Wealth" Problem. No other part of Barclays is this sick, unmotivated or leaderless. Staff are leaving in droves. People are bored stupid. There's no career progression within Wealth, and why would you want to stay anyway? They haven't a clue what they want the business to be, look or smell like in a year. It's dull. Really, really dull.