AllianceBernstein Reviews

Pros

Great resources. Without any formal advertising, Bernstein still creates great marketing pieces. The wealth analysis system is second to none. Very much a work hard, play hard environment.

Cons

Bernstein has a very specific and particular culture and if you don't understand it then you're done. There a lot of pressure to succeed so make sure you have constructive ways to deal with that stress.

Advice to Senior Management

New York needs to listen more to the region's request and be more attentive to its needs. New York may be the largest office, but several regional office are nipping at its heels in terms of assets under management. There are good ideas in the region regarding customer care, portfolio management, and office organization. Please listen to these ideas.

Pros

There is a good work / Life Balance at AllianceBernstein.
It is a typical nine to five job without too much stress.

Cons

You are poorly compensated at Alliancebernstein. Many people leave this company to go to other companies which pay much more.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should work on it's compensation and promotion program for all employees.
There are HR programs that pay lip service to it but no real action.

Pros

Opportunities for proffessional growth were provided.

Cons

Market conditions have induced instability.
The company has not availed of the recent market upswing to the best of their strengths.
It seems that they have lost their edge in research.

Advice to Senior Management

Find ways to stabilize IT departments and ensure best talent is retained.

Pros

more casual, laid back, coworkers become friends

Cons

stuck in your role. if you want something else, have to leave company.

Advice to Senior Management

employees no longer feel special or valued, drill it into leaders to take less trips and less canceled cars, and take their team out for lunch. Or someone else will...

Pros

Great (London) location, lovely office space (for now), one or two great people managers and lots of very smart, collaborative and frienldy colleagues who share knowledge pretty well. It's a small enough company not to have the glaring fiefdoms and politics you can find in larger organisations.
A good place to work if your department is generating revenue (i.e. fixed income). Not so good if you are a cost centre, whatever value you may add.

Cons

Endless, relentless downsizing, aka redundancies. Cost reduction is king at the moment, but to be fair, if you're one of the lucky ones that are still there then the quality of life (apart from more work to go around fewer people) is still pretty good. All depends where you work.
Not much money being spent on innovation (especially technology) - much more focussed on getting rid of wasted expense, of which there was plenty in the boom years.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more of the bad news to your staff - we know it's out there and silence just fuels the rumour mill. We like the good stuff too, btw.

Pros

Some people are entrenched and safe but it's not an innovative of invigorated environment. There are some good people, but relatively few. Benefits are pretty good.

Cons

Technology is fragmented and generally unpleasant. There is limited mobility and a lot of bureaucracy. Very much a clubby environment, not somewhere for innovation of growth. It's purely old money management. Unless you're an equity researcher, it's not the place to be.

Advice to Senior Management

Change with the times.

Pros

Great work life balance, benefits are good, cafeteria is good. A rich history, though there has been drift since 2009.

Cons

Inability to adapt to the changing environment has resulted in diminished opportunity and pay. It is also very difficult to advance and usually promote from outisde.

Advice to Senior Management

It is time to shake things up - continuing to do what worked 10 years ago is not working! I applaud rebranding to a fixed income firm, at least we are accentuaing our strengths.

Pros

1) Reasonable work/life balance: job hours are usually 8:30 to 5:30 with a full one hour lunch break when work permits
2) Cafeteria: cafeteria on 21st floor in the building is the only place that is innovative, efficient and well-managed

Cons

1) Incompetent management
2) Low morale: 90% of employees in the PMG department are looking for another job
3) Favoritism towards certain employees
4) Vicious circle of low comp packages --> demotivated employees --> bad portfolios performance --> low profitability --> low comp packages

Advice to Senior Management

Peter Kraus is either unaware of the low morale levels in the organization, or just totally ignores the current situation.

Pros

Gain wide array of knowledge and work with competent staff

Cons

Pay is below industry standards and management structure is very top heavy. There is no room for growth or advancement

Pros

Great cafeteria, good benefits, some pockets of extremely bright and collaborative people, especially the (dwingling number of) long-time folks who understand the company history and care deeply about the organization and clients.

Cons

Sadly, the company is simply not what it once was in large part due to the departure - some voluntary but often not - of tenured staff. The prior collaborative environment, most similar to academia in terms of intellectual curiosity and drive for well thought-out decisions to serve the clients best, has been subsumed by individual competitive drive to (1) keep one's own job and (2) sell products that seem to be popular, regardless of sensibility. Praise and recognition for work is increasingly taken by managers, not those actually doing the work.

Advice to Senior Management

Very few real messages filter down from top leadership and what does smells like propaganda. Employees feel left in the dark, with little understanding of the reasons behind decisions and certainly no input in decision making, even within one's immediate group.