1. Extremely low salary when considering the market and what competition is offering. Vanguard will argue that their research shows they are right on par; however, that does not include bonuses and incentives other firms provide. 2. Very bureaucratic promotion process which requires you to spend time with management from your destination department/role before you will even be considered. No, this does not mean an opportunity to get to know the job and see if it is indeed something that could be a good fit but instead an opportunity for others to "interview" you and create an opinion of you before you even put an application in. As my prior manager told me, you are either in their "talent pool" or you've got some hurdles to jump over. That is right folks, the talent pool is real and consists of employees that will not question or provide feedback on initiatives or projects no matter how ineffective they might be. Instead these are crew members who are relatively young and for the most part cannot create their own opinion on specific items. You might call this "group think." 3. Mediocre tools and resources available for reps to do their jobs. As a result, client experience takes a serious hit. For examples, see recent system outages, call misrouting and constant queues due to bad forecasting.
I am also saddened to report that Mr. Bogle's foundation and philosophy are quickly fading. Current CEO, Bill McNabb, sees an opportunity to gain further market share by pushing advice (PAS) and new VBA account structure, which so far has been a complete failure. Keep in mind that Vanguard built its foundation on simple investing, eliminating the need to pay for someone to manage your portfolio and instead focusing on a buy and hold philosophy. Something for clients and crew to keep an eye on.
