Pros
Recognizable brand name and opportunity to learn a lot about the business, if you are motivated. It is nearly impossible to get fired.
Cons
1) Pay (expect 20-40% less than any competitor, from entry level through mid-management 2) Complete lack of motivation from employees, poor performance is not punished, good performance is not rewarded 3) Business line managers are not accountable for their poor decisions and results 4) Low/Mid Level managers have little power to retain their best employees or get rid of their worst 5) Everyone is a Vice President and none of them do anything other than sit on conference calls with 35 other VPs. 6) It is a corporate bureaucracy in the absolute worse sense 7) HR is abysmal. No concern for current employees. All effort is spent hiring temps to replace full-time employees who have fled the bank. Some departments have >100% turnover. Advice to recent graduates: 1) Take a job at any other financial institution 2) If your only offer is from BNYM, take it, but immediately start applying for other jobs 3) Never let anyone know that you are competent; do the bare minimum, anything more than that will go unrewarded and make you a target for all the lazy people to dump their work on