Vanguard reviews

I could probably write a book of Vanguard cons. Have you ever heard of drinking the kool-aid? Because this place if full of kool-aid drinking, especially team leaders and their bosses - its sickening to watch while its blatantly fake as can be. Your TL (team leader) will meet with you at least monthly and review calls, glancing over anything you may have done well, to tell you how even though you had a great investment guidance conversation (like you were trained to do) the call was too long, or how the conversation was too short and you could have tried to sell the advisor service to someone who obviously didnt need it. They WILL push you to sell Personal Advisor Services to EVERYONE even if its not an official metric or anything you're explicitly told needs to be done. Bogle would be rolling in his grave if he knew how hard they were selling PAS since the whole point of Vanguard was to be a low cost investment company that provided diversified/index funds to negate the need to pay an advisor! Your TL will pretend to be your friend and "help" you, but at the end of the day all they care about are how many calls you crush in your 7.5 hours, regardless of if you had to spend an hour explaining the difference between a Roth IRA and traditional IRA and different investment options to a completely bewildered client that just wants someone to help them understand what they're getting into and what their investment options are as far as accounts/funds/fees. You do however get an hour long lunch. Unless its busy, then it'll be cut in half to 30, usually the last month or two of the year and the entirety of tax season. It may not sound like much, but when you don't get hit by that bus/train on the way to work like you were hoping that 30 extra minutes will be a killer. Oh, did I mention the pay is garbage and way under industry standard? Because it i, and they will try to tout their benefits, but 18 days of PTO (with NO sick time or personal days) is pretty average), yes their 401(k) match is great, but there is a 6 year vesting period and thats because their turnover is so high (wonder why??). You also get 30 minutes of break time a day to use as you please. Just don't use it the first 30 minutes of the day, or the last hour, or right before lunch, or right after, or the hour before the market closes, or the hour before your shift is done, and of course don't use it all in one go, 15 minutes max and that is pushing it. Your experience may vary on this one, but your TL will review calls (and they may have never even been on the phones) and tell you how much better they could have done it. If they take a call from an upset client you had they will complain and tell you how you could have resolved it. Even if the client just refused to accept what you told them and needed to hear it from a supervisor who said the exact same thing. In summary: DO NOT take this job. You will be absolutely miserable and pray you die on the way to work every morning. 18 PTO days wont even be close to enough to keep your mental health in check from the abuse you'll take from both sides of the phones. If this is your first job out of college you may thing these benefits are amazing and you won't find something comparable, but they're average at best and can be found everywhere. This job ruined my desire to have anything to do with finance aside from my own investments and helping family/friends with theirs. There are better jobs, with much better pay, and better benefits out there. This drove me to take a completely unrelated career path in a field that doesn't require a degree and is unionized and its been the best (and highest paying) job I've ever had. Take the time and find something good before you settle for this place or you WILL, regret it, I promise you.

There are many. But I had been a long-term crewmember and I have seen better days. It is also important to know that I loved working at Vanguard most of the time I was there. Unfortunately, the last few years have been the worst. Crew engagement is spiraling out of control and senior leadership seems to be apathetic with understanding why. My three biggest cons are: 1. Mid level leadership: Becoming worse by the day! Vanguard believes that their next generation of leaders is coming from the dozens and dozens of MBA new hires. These young and driven neophytes may be book smart, but they have no idea what it means to lead; nor do they understand the responsibility that comes with being a leader. Their goals are entirely self serving and they make it very clear they want to get to the next level. While this is common in many large financial service companies, it was never the Vanguard way... hark back to Jack Brennan's Back to Basics leadership initiative. Jack understood the importance of good leaders, this leadership team doesn't. 2. Rank and Yank.... If there was any doubt that this is common practice, I assure you it is. They use their forced ranking system to performance out older workers and minorities. Google Vanguard Lawsuits and you will see the multitude of articles written about these practices. It is a pervasive practice.They instituted a new severance policy last year to combat the influx of lawsuits. 3. "Pay for performance" translates to "the chosen ones get all of the money". The vast majority of crewmembers suffer with very low merit increases and bonuses.It doesn't matter how much you accomplish. It simply comes down to how much advocacy you have with your department head.