Ares Management reviews

3.5

59% would recommend to a friend

(438 total reviews)
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Michael Arougheti

86% approve of CEO

58% positive business outlook

Ares Management has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 438 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Ares Management employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

438 reviews
1.0
Jul 11, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free food, OT if you are hourly, opportunity for promotions, office if you're at 2000 Ave of Stars

Cons

1. Low salaries even though they seem to think they are competitive. They are not. Companies like Capital pay way more with better benefits and work life balance 2. Long hours (especially any finance job). Expect to work 12 hour days, weekends and holidays (like July 4). Walking into the CPE office on a weekend is just like walking in during a weekday, except people are dressed down. No work life balance. Several black out dates surrounding month and quarter ends where you can not take a day off. 3. Little employee appreciation. Expect the occasional good job email from CFO or invitation to bare bones happy hour in the kitchen which will end at 7pm even though you are expected to work until 8pm. 4. Work culture is every man for himself and throw people under the bus. This attitude is rampant here, I've never seen anything like it. Very poor intra-department understanding and communication. No one understands what anyone else does. You will undoubtedly get rude emails from other departments. When something goes wrong, everyone gets their blame stick out instead of working together to solve problems. 5. High turn over which management thinks is normal - it's not. 6. Zero accountability for bad managers (and there are plenty); you will never win against a manager here, no matter how inept he/she may be. 7. Caged in with no natural sunlight if you're in CPE building. 8. Zero (not a single person in the past 5 years) mobility from back to front office. I've never seen a firm culture that has such a strict wall up between their front office and the rest of the firm. They used to even do separate Christmas parties for the Front Office. 9. 20% pay cut when they 'promote' you from hourly to salary, they won't compensate you for the OT you will be losing 10. Operations departments are very cheap when it comes to ordering dinner despite them wanting you to work late hours. 11. Executive management (CFO) has unrealistic deadlines and expectations of departments. Orders to work holidays and weekends comes from here. Not sure why someone who can't articulate a few grammatically coherent sentences in front of an audience is in this position. 12. No encouragement of additional learning or expanding your skill set. They pay for the CFA only if you pass, ridiculous. Management probably understands there are no opportunities for a CFA here.

1.0
Sep 14, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Above average pay compared to other industries, great benefits, free food and drinks. Events put on that are paid by the company. Some nice people.

Cons

I have PTSD from working at this company. The whole "Great Place to Work" is a sham. This is the first company I worked at where there is little care to you as a human being. Companies in general don't care about individuals, but middle management usually at least tries to since we're all in it together. Not here. Everyone looks out for themselves. This is the first company I've worked for where its been like this (I've worked for 4 different companies). Some examples include: -If something happens in your personal life (i.e. a death in your family), they don't care about how you're doing as long as it doesn't effect your work negatively. -At my new company, I have to remind myself that I can say my spouse's first name instead of talking about them generally because my new leaders actually care. I was so use to sharing bare minimum at Ares because its not like most people actually cared to know. It's okay to be friends and work together in a professional setting, but apparently not at Ares. -Since they don't care about you, feedback is hard to receive and the desire to change is low. Even when you improve on certain areas, there is always something you did wrong that will be noticed. -Blame culture. No one wants to take responsibilities for their mistakes creating a culture of pointing fingers and pride.

3.0
Mar 5, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pre-covid: provide daily food & beverages, clean safe workspace. Difficult or poisonous personalities are not welcome. Good health benefits. Emphasis on diversity and inclusion programs. Company is aggressive in growing.

Cons

Expected to be available for work and to attend meetings late into evenings, when on vacation, holidays and weekends has gotten worse since Covid. No attempt from top to push back or try to manage expectations or hours. Everything is a fire that needs immediate attention. Annual pay raise at mid-lower levels are not reflective of expectations or the 'phenomenal' success of the firm in recent years. Lack of transparency with regard to review process, compensation and bonus. Managers do not go to bat for all employees given the amount of work and time on the clock expectation, unless you are favorite. Aggressive firm growth means more work and resources haven't kept pace. No consideration for firmwide or cross platform coordination or enhancement evident. Little room for promotion in some departments.

Viewing 19 - 21 of 438 Reviews

Glassdoor has 518 Ares Management reviews submitted anonymously by Ares Management employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Ares Management is right for you.