Morgan Stanley reviews

3.9

75% would recommend to a friend

(19,905 total reviews)
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Ted Pick

81% approve of CEO

73% positive business outlook

Morgan Stanley has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 19,905 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Morgan Stanley employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

20K reviews
1.0
Mar 7, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

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.

3.0
Mar 6, 2021

A mixed bag

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A lot of great people and a great platform. Pre covid, some of the offices had a fun culture. The covid response has been very good. Some of the US benefits improved with Morgan Stanley. Has a smaller company feel with a large company's resources. Some of the middle management is fantastic. If you get onto a great team with one of the good managers, it'll be a good job.

Cons

Ironically, US employees stopped getting stock awards with Morgan Stanley. Not even an espp! Some of the other benefits are surprisingly stingy. Add the 401k match once a year? Come on, you're in the business - that's a lot compounding power of that money the company is keeping for itself. The Morgan Stanley bureaucracy is stunningly difficult to work with. It can take weeks to get even simple communications approved. Gets in the way of good client service and support. Upper management does all the talking and not much listening, so the employee fundamentals don't improve. For example, there is practically no career path for CSMs. There are definitely favorites, and if you're not one of the lucky few, be prepared to stay at the bottom of the pile. That's why some people have been there for a decade or more but in other groups turnover is high. There's a turf battle with E*TRADE that's not pretty. Solium and E*TRADE were arch rivals and I don't think MS cared about what that was going to be like. Lots of legacy Solium leadership got pushed down a level so E*TRADE leadership could be inserted, which is not good optics.

2.0
Feb 19, 2021

Bought by Morgan Stanley. Getting more political.

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of M&A activity before Morgan Stanley meant great opportunities to move up. Company worked at continuously improving its diversity and inclusion. Compensation / bonus good.

Cons

E*Trade culture in PMO is mostly like working with check-the-box robots / order-takers. Not a lot of creative / interesting thinking. Those who have it, leave.

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