Tell me about working at Capital One

[Anonymous]

Peer not previous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went through the whole interview process and was disappointed in the salary offer for a tech role. I had been clear what my current salary was (and my current company had much better benefits) and they still came in low in the offer and across the industry.

I turned it down.

Also, I was shocked at the lack of experience with some of the people on the team. It seemed that everyone was cool with the fact that you passed some weird set of tests but had no actual experience.

I'm curious about the role and where else you've worked. I'm in an analytical role and the pay is good compared to alternatives.

You're right about experience. It's a bank founded by consultants, and the consulting culture is still very much there. One's ability to problem solve (pass a case interview) is assumed to be a transferable skill to just about anything else, regardless of the technical nature of the work. That's the founding assumption of consulting, isn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went through the whole interview process and was disappointed in the salary offer for a tech role. I had been clear what my current salary was (and my current company had much better benefits) and they still came in low in the offer and across the industry.

I turned it down.

Also, I was shocked at the lack of experience with some of the people on the team. It seemed that everyone was cool with the fact that you passed some weird set of tests but had no actual experience.

Around what time period was this?

I'm kind of surprised at the other posts saying that it's hard to get into because I remember about five or seven years ago Capital One had a lot of postings for tech jobs.

So I kind of assumed that they were always hiring for tech positions. Haven't really looked more recently.

But maybe the current group of people came from that period of hiring so have only been around for five years or so.

I always thought that since it was a bank that they would have more of a old fashioned type of mentality or culture. So that's good to know about their benefits and culture and maybe I will an eye out for jobs posted from them in the future.

There are other companies around that offers "unlimited" leave. I can't remember the details but remember somewhere describing it as kind of a trap and no one really takes advantage of it. That might've been that particular company though.

[Anonymous]

PP here. I was specifically thinking about non-tech jobs like Marketing or Finance at Cap One that are hard to get, but tech jobs may be too.

[Anonymous]

I applied for a position in Community Relations and had to take a ton of tests, including some that tested my mathematical abilities. Seemed kinda ridiculous for the position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work with a lot of Cap one teams. It's hard to get hired there but people there love it and it's a very collaborative, friendly, and flexible work environment. The company takes good care of its employees and values customers, too,

joking right? one of the worst banks out there...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work with a lot of Cap one teams. It's hard to get hired there but people there love it and it's a very collaborative, friendly, and flexible work environment. The company takes good care of its employees and values customers, too,

joking right? one of the worst banks out there...

Not at all. Do some research.

For starters, they've routinely had some of the lowest interest rates for the worst risk tiers out there. So much so that when they bought HSBC, they sent out notices saying that interest rates were going down for some customers. I forget the specific cut off but HSBC charged something like 33% at riskiest tranche, Capital One had a corporate wide policy cap of 28% or so. Only reason is they felt it less unassailable to charge more.

They also pioneered the lack of foreign txn fees and didn't do the vast majority of things that the CARD act and other regulations obligated other banks not to do - things like processing bank credit before debits causing overdrafts. They even exited one of the largest portfolios of cards they owned because they didn't like how the interest was calculated (I.e. Same as cash style deals which are designed to hurt consumers through "gotcha" style clauses).

These things are real - they do them because they genuinely believe they can run a bank AND do right by customers. It doesn't always work, and im sure there are horror stories to find online, but by and large "do the right thing" is very much part of the culture. It's actually worked well financially too - when things like the CARD act came out and other banks had to issue downward projections due to their impact, Capital One didn't - because they already weren't doing those shenanigans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I applied for a position in Community Relations and had to take a ton of tests, including some that tested my mathematical abilities. Seemed kinda ridiculous for the position.

They've done away with the mandatory math and verbal tests, but it's part culture FYI.

[Anonymous]

It's a special place. You really feel like you are changing the world for the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I applied for a position in Community Relations and had to take a ton of tests, including some that tested my mathematical abilities. Seemed kinda ridiculous for the position.

They've done away with the mandatory math and verbal tests, but it's part culture FYI.

Wrong!! I applied for a legal position in February and had to take them. I totally failed because I'm very bad at math and that was that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I applied for a position in Community Relations and had to take a ton of tests, including some that tested my mathematical abilities. Seemed kinda ridiculous for the position.

They've done away with the mandatory math and verbal tests, but it's part culture FYI.

Wrong!! I applied for a legal position in February and had to take them. I totally failed because I'm very bad at math and that was that.

All depends on job family. Most positions require some kind of case and Capital One case interviews are very math heavy, but not all positions require case interviews. We're hiring for my team now and will do a full day but no formal casing, so we might end up bringing in some one who's not great at math. That could work for this particular role, but your mobility is limited if you can't pass the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work with a lot of Cap one teams. It's hard to get hired there but people there love it and it's a very collaborative, friendly, and flexible work environment. The company takes good care of its employees and values customers, too,

I would never say that capital one values its customers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a special place. You really feel like you are changing the world for the better.

How so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there really unlimited vacation?

No. But the company doesn't track it. So they don't know what you have it gave not taken. They have sone major accounting gaps for a company that big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there really unlimited vacation?

No. But the company doesn't track it. So they don't know what you have it gave not taken. They have sone major accounting gaps for a company that big.

It's not a gap. It makes a public company's books look better to not have a huge liability on the books.