Fidelity Investments Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Incredible benefits and pay. Generous paid time off. Opportunity to grow your career is very good if you get out of call centers.

Cons – Incredibly micromanaged, you are literally a number. Lack of any real diversity at the top. Out of touch managment in Boston. Nepotism at its finest at the most senior level of the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Promote based on results, not personality. Encourage education, don't discourage it. Bring in new blood and make the lines of communication less military like to promote more open diaglogue.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Benefits are excellent (retirement, health savings, profit sharing, education).
If you are lucky enough to receive training the you will benefit, but if you work for group that doesn't put emphasis on it then you are on your own.

Cons – Directors spend 80% of their time managing up and 20% of their time protecting their bonuses .
Some of the worst people managers in the business.
Poor project planning which results in cost over runs and rework.
The "Yes Man" culture is embraced and rewarded.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire more managers with success leading teams from outside Fidelity and if necessary, hire more MBAs within your Fidelity Technology Business Groups (EI, CTG, FPCMS, FI, PWI etc) Reason: MBAs have at least read a business case study in their career.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great benefits, generally great people who work there

Cons – Company culture (merit is not recognized or promoted), Pay is lousy, Entry level workers should expect to work either nights or Saturdays, good shifts are rare

Advice to Senior Management – Pay your people more.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than a year

Pros – Excellent training, good benefits, youthful energy

Cons – Contradictory instruction, micro managing, incompetent management

Advice to Senior Management – Find more effective measurements of employee productivity

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Fidelity Investments

Pros – -Licensed for series 7 and 63
-Learn how to trade equities and mutual funds
-Learn how to interact with clients
-Very supportive peer

Cons – -Pay is terrible
-Job is not rewarding
-Very micromanaged
-Stuck to a phone all day
-Not much job growth

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Good Branding for Resume; Diverse Product Range; Well Known Company; Decent technology Implementation to keep up with the current trends.

Cons – Corrupt Managment; Cost Cutting at expense of Employees; HR does not hire quality personnel; Cheap wins always over value; Minimum investment into employee development; Inexpereinced managment without knowledge of industry or expereince managing employees

Advice to Senior Management – The managment is corrupt with politics of who you know, alethough that might be in a lot of places the Fidelity situation is much more damaging to people who put in most of the work and have no time for politics. Unexpereinced menagment is wasting talent at an enourmous rate with best people leaving within 2 years once they realize they won't be able to grow their career. Senior managment in place are people who pass their responsibility onto ones that can do it cheap and quick. There are lots of situations where a husband who is a SVP puts his wife in charge at a different location without any expereince. Many situations similar to that across the organization.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – -flexibility of schedule and for time off
-great benefits
-great location
-wonderful scenery

Cons – -promotions are limited
-too much group rotation
-low pay
-holiday vacation is limited

Advice to Senior Management – Value your employees more and they in turn will be more enthusiastic as well as productive.

Current Employee – been working at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Mobility and other opportunities abound if you are patient. Good name within the industry and loyal client base. Great inexpensive investment lineup.

Cons – Corporate politics abound here. To move up carry toilet paper around often to wipe your nose. They only want to hear the truth if its what they want to hear. You can be #1 in sales but if you dont further their agenda you will stall your career. Micro management is well over the top. Worst I have ever encountered. The compensation is extremely weak (My gross income here is what I used to pay in taxes at my other jobs and I am in the top 20 people out of 300 in the nation for 2 years running) Great place to get hired if you are desperate or looking for a stepping stone but will never be long term. They are short term focused but always talk about the long term. Do not let this fool you! Middle management and some mkt mgrs truly have no clue how to manage. They are failed sales people with brown crust on their noses that micro manage and have little to zero outside experience ( this is their only real job since college). The work and dealing with clients is ok as the Fido client is a cheapskate and know-it-all. It takes time to build trust, realtionships and for the client to self discover they need your/Fido help. Management wants you to slam them into products today. A "what have you done for me today" mentality. If your response is "built a deeper relationship
based on trust and confidence" the branch mgr will look at you like a cyborg and keep repeating "that does not calculate" until his brain starts to smoke. Corp vision is a lie. They say they want to retain top talent and build long term relationships. Look at their actions. It is a lie. 5 top Senior Accountt execs left in the last 12 months. Everyone of them were threatened on the way out by their mgr rather than spoken to for retention measures. If this were a public company I would buy a put 3 years in the future so i could put it to someone I hated and make a killing from their lose. It is a truly broken system and the mend is at minmum 5 years away. Possibly a decade. Lastly, once you do sell something you have to track it and a third of the time sent up exception as they are not crediting it to you but atbthe same time will be delivering you an oral warning of termination for low production which they will not rescind once its credited and also become part of your HR file. It is purely about power, fear and control at this place. It is only for the weak and timid not top talent.

Advice to Senior Management – You have great talent working for you now. Pay them. Treat them like the pros they are and pay them to retain them. Your attitude toward your S/AE's is reflected by your TOA ratio- yes your clients are leaving in droves because they smell it. If you cared about the client you would not make them endure a dozen S/AE changes over a decade. They are sick of seeing quality talent leave so they go to Vanguard etc. You can dictate to your senior account execs to make 25 dials a day. That does not create a place we want to work and your elementary approach to mgmt focusing on activity drives great talent away. You hired us because of our proven success then we get here and you want us to change what and how we are that made us top salespeople. Because you have the wrong mgmt in places ( braches and market mgr- especially the southeast) does not mean your bean counting micro mgmt will work. Good luck. You will need it. I am one of many in the top that are leaving. Call me when you mature enough to recognize talent and will remunerate me for my skills. Elephants like me will eat the peanut trail but once we realize the trail is a neverending circle with no real food at the end, we leave. Another top 2% SAE leaving. When are you gonna self discover? Maybe management should be trained on CSS.............

Former Employee – worked at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – There are good perks, a lot of opportunities to learn in Fidelity. There is nothing like work-life balance in financial world, it is 24X7X365

Cons – A lot of politics in some of the groups that is taking the toll on the morale of the workforce there. The folks are scared to say anything due to the bad economy.

Advice to Senior Management – Idenitfy and encourage the good guys.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Fidelity Investments full-time for more than a year

Pros – theres steady paycheck at least

Cons – boring work, they have vending machines but make you pay for the beverages. that's so out of date.

Advice to Senior Management – make the job more fun and challenging.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend