AXA Advisors Reviews

Pros

It was a friendly place to work, and everyone was supportive when I needed help.

Cons

The hardware (computers) need to be updated because it was too slow.

Advice to Senior Management

Buy new computer monitors please.

Pros

Great place to start your financial services career if you have a good amount of money saved up! Big international company with a lot of driven individuals. You will be placed in a small group under an experienced leader.

Cons

The training process is not very structured, and you will have to give out a large amount of expense up front every month.

Pros

they reward if you make them a lot of money, but thats hard to do

Cons

hard to get started, once started its still hard to keep going, always looking for more people to get money from, have to cold call, 12 hour days

Advice to Senior Management

It should be so hard to get clients

Pros

Benefits are pretty good.
Freedom to determine schedule.
Possibility for high earnings.
Company reputation not associated with the rest of financial services industry and the bailouts and lawsuits.

Cons

Constant pressure to sell insurance products.
Forsaking of client well being for profit.
Excessive costs passed on to employees.
Lack of management support.

Pros

If you meet your sales targets upper management you can pretty much structure your own work hours.
You become educated and qualified to sell several finanial and insurance products.
Recognizable brand name.

Cons

Selling insurance based products isn't very interesting.
You have to go to a lot of your parents' family and friends and ask them to come in for a financial planning meeting.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't hire people who are straight out of college. It's too difficult to convince people to let you manage their money at such a young age.

Pros

- Benefits are decent if you can stay around long enough to take advantage of them
- The flexbility is incredible
- Wealth building is among the best in the industry. Very comprehensive but does have long term vesting requirements.

Cons

There are numerous downsides to work in the AXA career system, let me debunk some of the myths you will hear recruiters talk about:

- Your compensation is what you make of it..........flat out pitch to entice new recruits into the "exciting" world of financial based commission sales. Truth be told, you can earn a nice living for yourself if you make it long enough to see some of the "trails" and "residuals" hiring mangers will talk about. There is no way around it, you WILL NOT MAKE MONEY at AXA during your first 3-6 months. Should you stay the course and pass the Series 7 you will only be given 4-8 weeks of "training allowance" for your efforts. The "training allowance" came about as a result of AXA losing a lawsuit in CA because the majority of their new advisors were not earning a wage equivalent to minimum wage, you read that correctly, the majority of new associates have not been earning an amount equal to minimum wage. You pay over $1000 in licensing fees, burn through your contacts (nope, no leads provided either!!!), buy into the AXA system, and work 60-70 hour weeks trying to earn minimum wage at best.

- No stability and home office or local levels. All hiring managers love to talk about stability and how AXA is so great. They are only telling you 1/2 truth, no, we did not take bail-out money. Why? Because we are headquartered in France and not eligible. What did we do instead? Took bail out money from AXA home office in France. Stability at the local level? Thats a joke. Wholesale district and branch manager turnover across the company. The majority of the talent at the agency and district level has fled for greener pastures over the past 12 months as a result of AXA's failure to adapt and change with the times. The only thing consistent at AXA is increasing expenses moved to the sales force, high associate turnover and non-competitive product offerings (detractors will argue that we have an open architecture...................) we do have the ability to sell outside of AXA if we are personally given permission from the agency manager, good luck!!! The agency managers are paid proprietary overrides at a rate nearly 10x what they receive for non-AXA business. Where is the incentive to approve your request? If they do approve the request, any non-AXA business you sell will not count towards benefits validation or wealth building. This is a publicly traded company and treated like one. In fact, they are currently in the process of transitioning a new CEO. The former CEO was excellent and did a wonderful job of navigating AXA through an incredibly difficult financial time, his reward? move over buster here comes the new guy, with new ideas, and new ties to improve the stock price.....how will he do it? Cut costs (i.e. cut salary and payouts) and drive proprietary business sales (making a difficult request even more challenging!!!)

- AXA is one of many career agencies that introduce new advisors into the business. Do your homework and don't be afraid to interview with other firms, especially those who actually invest in new associates. I would recommend Guardian, MetLife or Mass. I know that I will get flack for mentioning these firms but I really don't care. Don't let any recruiters fool you or tell you differently, we all do effectively the same type of business, we just go at it different ways. You will sell life insurance and tons of it if you want to succeed at AXA.

In closing, I have been a high level producer with AXA for some time and have made it through the challenges described above. My personal wealth is so tied into the AXA value prop that I have no choice but to stay. However, I have not, can not and will not ever refer anyone to work with the firm. I would challenge ANY hiring manager to argue or challenge the points outlined above. I have been pleased with my AXA experience but I doubt you will be so lucky.

Advice to Senior Management

As a current financial consultant I would recommend that they reinvest in the field sales force and move towards a more sustainable hiring and development model, as opposed to a "call everyone you know and then be out of the business in 12 months" type of hiring model.

Take your own advice: I can't tell you how many times in my career I have been told to invest in my business and think like a business owner. Why doesn't AXA senior management invest in field sales force? Start offering the DSF a true salary option to help smooth out some of the ups and downs and don't hold out a legally mandated minimum wage as a "training allowance" to help get them started in the business. I have personally heard a member of the AXA senior management committee (Yes, the NYC senior management committee, which tells you what kind of producer I am to have access to these persons!!!) complaining about being legally forced to offer new associates a training salary after they pass the Series 7 exam. This resentment is readily apparent in their field communications.

Most importantly, VALUE PRODUCERS OF ALL LEVELS, as they help make the company what it is. Losing 9 out of 10 people that start and positioning yourself as the "chosen place to build a career" is flat-out misleading. If you want to be the best, then invest in your business like you mean it!!!

Pros

-- free to work from anywhere as long as you are generating business
-- people are really friendly/social environment
-- you can earn as much as you can and can have a full control over your career as financial advisor

Cons

--10% remains after 3-5 years if they cant hit their target numbers
-- commissions are hard to come by sometimes

Advice to Senior Management

provide more leads so that people can generate more business. or increase the base salary option

Pros

Ability to learn about financial products.

Cons

No respect given to subodinates.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay your interns and give them real work. Not make caller lists only!

Pros

Well respected with other advisors
A good real life insight into the financial advising
Using real programs that actual advisors use
Got to go to meetings with other advisors

Cons

No compensation
Seems a bit repetitive at times
Nothing really else than these, just using these for filler words yep

Advice to Senior Management

Salary compensation would be nice
Some kind of future career path within AXA Advisors (after the internship ends) would be helpful

Pros

Good Training and proper work atmosphere.

Cons

100% commission scam + being pimped out (having to split whatever small commission with your managers for the first 2-3 years).
Also have to pay every business expense from your own pocket!

Advice to Senior Management

There must be a reason why they are not growing: give employees a chance with a base and much more time to validate contracts.