Pros
Benefits, 401K 50% Match, Learning how to cold call.
Cons
Where to start? Have you ever seen Boiler Room? Imagine that movie, picture it in your head. That beautiful line "let me tell you what's required." The suits, the parties after work, the comradery . It could all be so sweet, until, you remember how the movie ends. Orientation: "Beautiful Rose Colored Glasses" You show up in a suit, hair slicked back (or curled, if you're of the women employed as sales executive) ready to make it to the big leagues. They'll put you up in a hotel, feed you, tell you that this is where you want to be. You'll hear from "regional outside sales" people with custom suits, rolexes, and keys to that blue Porsche you saw outside. "That could be me right?" Sure, it can, and they'll show you how. Not to mention, free benefits, 50% match on your 401k. You're working for a company that outperforms the S&P 500 year after year (wink). A company that works with their customers to create custom portfolios (wink) Sounds pretty awesome right? Now, here is the important part, go ahead and pledge your allegiance, along with the other 30 sales people in your month class, to the machine. The Fisher Machine. You are now hereby a cog in that machine and you best not waver from the belief in the system. Now go forward and get that life you always dreamed of. The role: Glasses ripped off. Remember those promises of wealth. Well, I'm sorry I mislead you. I was mislead too. Let's get to the first concern, 30K is the base. Unless you're living with your parents, get ready for ramen and PB sandwiches every night. "But commissions anon?" Yes let's talk about that. I realized the allusion I was sold when I asked my "boss" (just another account executive with a "senior" in front of his name) what he's making on a yearly basis. Not the best question to ask, but hey I was right out of college. He proceeded to tell me "oh 6 figures easy." I didn't expect him to lie, I mean I was bought in. I drank the Kool-Aid willingly. I started doing the numbers in my head. An average deal will net you about 1K in commissions. That means in order to hit 100K, that's 70 deals in a year. Mr. Senior's deal count? 34. You do the math. Six figures is not an easy number to hit here, you won't be driving a new car anytime soon, and no that promise of wealth is not real. That was my first red flag. Then came the phones. You'll hit them everyday and you won't stop for even your bladders sake. I once was asked by a boss "who goes to the bathroom that long?" Your lunches are timed, your every move is watched. You are a cog in the machine and you best sit your butt down and dial. Dial those promising leads. High-net worth investors, which are passed around by 600+ sales executives, that have been called on for years. Scroll down the call log and you'll see "NI.. Told me to never call again.. NI... Said he would never switch." Well, guess who gets to be the person to call them again? You. Let me just paint the picture. You're not selling a product, you're selling for someone's life savings. Practically begging them to invest all of their money in Fisher, blindly, for a 1.5% fee. You have no idea what the investment strategy is. How their life savings are going to be managed. You just know what you're supposed to say. Now hopefully you say the script better than the 100 others before you, otherwise click-"NI"-Log Call. The script will tell you, you're selling a "wonderful customized portfolio. Tailored to the individual to best fit their needs". It is not a customized portfolio. Let me repeat. It is not a customized portfolio. You're selling a mutual fund. The returns of that fund? Those are confidential, sorry kiddo. They can't have you knowing "the secret." I did some digging I mean I pitched my own father on this stuff. I had to know and what I found out was, to say the least, disturbing. They shut down an older fund to hide performance and in the year 2018, I found the fund underperformed the S&P 500. For the year, the S&P: -13%, Fisher Fund: -28%. That's a quarter of someone's life savings, gone, seeing as that's all they can invest. Now let's say you have the mental strength to ignore all of that. Call 250 people a day. Get berated by your boss about bathroom breaks and number of dials, sit in one chair, in a hot suit, and block out all of the frat culture. (There were two girls hired into the office in sales, two. Rumors of one, were that well, she was hired because she was a pretty face for the guys to look at). Let's say you can endure all of that. You would hope that through it all, dealing with the mundane groundhog day life, it eventually would lead to some reward. It eventually will! To be exact.....only just a measly 8-10 years. The fastest person ever to be promoted from account executive to outside sales position? That guy, the Michael Jordan of Fisher, took 6 years. That's the cream of the crop, and hey if that's you, congrats. For the rest of us, that means years of dialing away, arguing with people about how dumb they are for investing with other firms, while your manager yells at you for your talk minutes because you got hung up on 20 times that day. You will become a one trick pony and your one trick is picking up the phone and speaking the words someone else has written for you. Let's hope while doing this you can maintain your mental health everyday. For me, it lead to depression and exhaustion. I wasn't myself during my time at Fisher, and it's not like I had the support of management to figure it out. This review is harsh, I'll admit that. I say all of this as a warning. I hate seeing posts on LinkedIn of young grads excited about their new promising role. Being duped just as I was. I look back at this part of my career as bittersweet. Am I happy I went through it? Actually yes, I learned an important lesson: Never to be fooled by the allusion of money. I tell this story to say, don't make the same mistake I did. Your college degree is worth more than Fisher Investments.