Pros
Name recognition and convenient office locations.
Cons
Either the hiring process, or management, or both have managed to create a culture of greed, distrust, sexism, and racism in this company. They have managed to hire only people who share these similar traits. Of course, not every MS employee is bad. The ones who are not like the rest have left. The ones who stay are more or less the same kind. Most senior advisors, who have been there for decades, seem to have the same old-school Wall St mindset and work ethic (lack thereof.) The management strongly emphasizes the importance of junior advisors joining a team. Thus, for the newbies, it is their main focus in the first year to market themselves to teams. If you are young, white men, regardless of your talent or education, you probably are able to find a team of old, white men to adopt you. Once you are in, the team will abuse your contacts to the end, and you will cold call like there's no tomorrow, while learning nothing valuable that will help you become a better, smarter advisor. Did I mention that the failure rate for new advisors is known to be 98%? So, if you're not one of the 2% who survive (we are not talking about thrive here), you will be out the door within 2 years. The contacts you have brought in? They stay with the team, at MS. And, you are out prospecting again at a different company. That's how it has always worked since the beginning of time, and everyone knows it.