90 day notice period at Barclays?

[Sonny D]

just got an offer from Barclays as a VP and in the offer letter it says that when I leave I have to give 90 days notice. Is this common at the VP level for banks? What do other banks have?

 

[Ken Abbott]

In which group?

 

[Sonny D]

In which group?

Doesn't matter. It is company wide. IT, trading, quants, Ops, ...

 

[throll]

yes 3 months common for VP but it's good news if you are in Front Office the next time you move you'll have 3 months break

 

[Sonny D]

Talk to some buddies at Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. They said 90 days/ 3 months is only for directors there. troll, what bank do you know that has 90 days for ALL VP's in the entire company?

 

[C S]

I'm guessing the contract doesn't say they have to give YOU 90 days notice to let you go. IANAL, but I'm skeptical that a non-mutual notice period would be legally enforceable for at-will employment. As far as I can tell, it's not uncommon for an IB to state you need to give notice as an at-will employee and even put in a clause that they can immediately let you go after you give notice! I would hope that's not legally enforceable.

 

[Ken Abbott]

Talk to some buddies at Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. They said 90 days/ 3 months is only for directors there. troll, what bank do you know that has 90 days for ALL VP's in the entire company?

This was confirmed with HR. I was surprised, too. Many other firms have 3 month notice periods for MDs only.

 

[throll]

deustche bank 90 days for VP+ and Goldman Sachs for ED+

 

[financeguy]

On the longer side, but definitely normal. If you want to leave, you need to tell your next employer you'd likely not be able to work for 3 months. It's just a free option for the bank to protect its IP for up to 3 months. When you resign, they can easily choose to not enforce the notice period at all. They (big banks) have been choosing not to enforce it to the full extent more and more because they don't want to pay a salary for 3 months for someone who isn't working - an easy cost to cut in a world in which banks are looking to cut costs. You can't count on them not enforcing it, though, which is why any future employer needs to know about the notice period before you quit your job at Barclays. I think of it as a good thing, in any case, because any job worth taking will wait 3 months for you, and it's not often you'd get 3 straight months of paid vacation in your career.

 

[Sonny D]

Talked to a bunch of friends of friends. In groups like IT they make you stay AND WORK the 90 days. They seem to have trouble hiring people, and need the workers. Well, needless to say, I took a different job. Don't want to work for a place that has to TRAP people there to get things done.

 

[Sonny D]

Seems like they just lowered it to 30 days in NY.