These experiences are based on my experience in the "CARI" Refinance specialty and may differ from the traditional refinance or Purchase specialties (but probably not by much).
Horrible work/life balance. I was set with the expectation upon being hired that the schedule was about 50-55 hours a week with 1 mandatory Saturday out of the month. However, in actuality, the real schedule was Mon-Fri is 7AM to 7PM (Usually have to stay as late as 8:30) and yes, on paper you're only mandated to work 1 Saturday out of the month, but any Saturday that you don't work, you can expect repercussions the following Monday. Worse yet, every March Quicken holds a competition called "March Madness" where you'll actually be asked to work 30 days in a row as all of the teams battle it out to win the top spot. If I was told from the start that I'd be working 6 days a week, every single week and asked in March to work 30 days in a row, I would not have accepted this job.
Kicking struggling people while they are down: It has never been so apparent that the company is so concerned with its bottom line enough to the point that they'll intentionally hurt their own associates to protect it. In my specialty, known as "CARI", we refinance currently serviced clients to ensure that they are in the best spot. Any seasoned Mortgage banker can tell within the first few moments of the call whether or not the client is in a good spot without the need to pull credit. Unfortunately, the way their lead distribution works, is that more leads are given to the people who pull the most credit, so we're put in a position where we're being demanded to unnecessarily ding up people's credit scores even when we're 100% certain the client is in the best spot. If you don't pull credits on these people, then you're placed in a severely worse pool of leadflow where there is no opportunity and you're almost guaranteed to fail. On multiple occasions we're even told by our directors that they do not care how good the profile looks, just pull the credit, deny the client and move on. Mind you we don't pull the client's credit without their permission, but they have us ramp up the fact that we can save the client a ton of money, only to have us call back 5 minutes after dinging up their credit to say "You're in a good spot".
Lack of respect or compassion for Employees: This was my final straw with the company. In February I became ill with the flu, I had no voice but still showed up to work to try my best. It was noticed immediately by my Director and I was told to go home because he didn't want me getting everyone else sick, which it fine and makes sense. My voice hadn't returned to me until about 7 days later and even then it was still only about 50%, now accompanied by a nasty cough, so upon showing up to work, I was sent home again, which is also understandable. Now the 8 days that I missed completely consumed all of my PTO, infact I was negative 4 hours of PTO. Upon my return I was informed that my Grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to her liver and lungs and didn't have much longer. With that, I took this information to my director and requested 1 day to see her before she passed. I was then told that because of my recent "poor" attendance, they can't tell me not to go, but there will likely be severe repercussions for doing so. While some may argue that this is a very gray area, I think a scenario like this would only be viable if I had abused my PTO, but considering I was sent home because even my director saw that I was unfit to work, I don't think that should hold me back from saying my final goodbye to a loved one.
In closing, these opinions are expressed solely from a mortgage bankers perspective, so if you're looking into a job with the servicing team, you may have a better experience then I. The best recommendation I can make would be to get into Quicken Loans for the Licensing and the Training and either soon after Blue Print start searching for another company where you can utilize your skills to the fullest or stick it out until you experience these problems first hand for yourself. I don't normally write these, but I feel that my voice needed to be heard because I've never been treated so disgustingly by any company in the world and I want to make sure that anyone who reads this knows exactly what they're going up against.
