Morningstar

1.0

Aug 26, 2020

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Bagels once a week back when the office was open. On the rare occasion you aren't being dumped with someone else's busywork, "real" work is minimal. Hence, lots of free time during the quarantine.

Cons

Unlike what this role is presented as to internal hires, it involves minimal writing or argumentation. Internals with years of experience are hired into an "associate" role while externals a year out of college are hired a level up. These "associates" publish reports, for upwards of a year, under the names of people who typically had nothing to do with their creation. Copy-and-paste busywork from the broader group gets dumped on these "associates", so someone 1-5 years out of college spends more time pasting bits from one spreadsheet to the next instead of learning about the financial industry or establishing oneself as an analyst. The opportunity to write research pieces on the industry is routinely played up in the job description and hiring process, but this is BS: such opportunities barely exist, and when they do, it's yet again more copy-and-pasting old pieces and replacing some numbers. The group itself is split between people with 5 or fewer years of experience on one side, and people whose main priority isn't professional development on the other. Salary is lackluster. Internal work on reports is very high level and – surprise – is mostly copy and paste. For the prestige that Morningstar seems to think this group carries, the behind-the-scenes is unimpressive. To internals: absolutely do not apply; you'll be nothing but cheap labor with lots of potential career progression time utterly wasted. And to externals: why would you want to work at this kind of company?

Morningstar Response

We’re sorry to hear about your experience with our manager research associate program. We wanted to take a moment to respond to your comments specifically around the associate program. Our associate program is designed for recent college graduates who are interested in the research and analysis career track at Morningstar. Associates work alongside more senior members of the team to research and recommend forward-looking ratings on funds and other investment vehicles. They participate in every part of the research process, conducting analysis on portfolios, interviewing portfolio managers, formally recommending ratings to the ratings committees, writing reports and presenting to institutional clients. As they progress, they take on increasing ownership for this work and are assigned their own coverage list. Successful associates make great candidates for the analyst program and a number have been promoted to analyst roles in recent years. Associates also have the opportunity to contribute to articles and longer form research pieces and have made meaningful contributions to our research effort. So, for example, an associate helped author this year’s installment of our widely read Target Date Report and presented at a webinar to clients. A former associate who was promoted to analyst takes the lead on our well-received research into 529 savings plans. Others are regular contributors to Morningstar.com. We often hear from analysts and associates alike that writing is an important part of the job. In our experience those who love to write, are intellectually curious, and relentless in digging into their research assignment lists flourish in the job. We’re grateful for the contributions of our associates and hope that we’ll continue to attract top-notch talent into this program. If you are open to meeting with a member of our team to share more ideas for how we can improve, please reach out to your current manager or a member of our Talent and Culture team.

A black hole for your career. - Associate Manager Research Analyst Morningstar Employee Review

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