Calamos Asset Management Reviews

Pros

Love my hours, free lunch is great, share in the belief "spirit to serve", decent outsourcing package, good people to work with.

Cons

Not many options to transfer out of department due to outsourcing. Posted for other position but hired someone w/ less experience from outside the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Did not receive much appreciation for the work we do when the decision came down to outsourcing the ops department.

Pros

Good benefits, only 40 hrs a week

Cons

Upper Management doesn't communicate effectively. Internal politics are higher here than I've ever seen anywhere. Everyone is afraid to tell upper management what they think, or new ideas. John Calamos wants innovative thinkers, yet weeds out anyone who thinks different than him out outside of the box. He's stuck in the 1990's.

Advice to Senior Management

Let your employees do what they were trained for. John Calamos micro manages too much

Pros

I agree with the others. Good benefits, free lunch, etc. The work is rather easy, so there is not much stress.

Cons

Political. my managers are not very involved with the associates, so there is little communication. Most people feel they are underpaid

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate, take time to talk to those you manage and get to know them
Managers need to give more responsibility to the associates

Pros

not a lot pressure to get work done, good work and life balance, good benefits, free lunches, if you aren't an agressive employee its a good place for you

Cons

sr. management doesn't pay much attention to employees, think they are a technology firm when they have 1980's technology, Who the heck uses Foxpro anymore? lots of dinosaurs roaming the aisles

Advice to Senior Management

trust your employess, they know more than you think, you grew too fast, and don't get into business your don't know about, i.e. real estate and restaurants

Pros

Good hours and good compensation

Cons

Poor management and unfairly treat employees

Advice to Senior Management

Need to treat employees better

Pros

Flexibility with work/life balance. Free lunch each day. Covered parking. Good vacation policy and 401k match/profit sharing. Upscale work environment.

Cons

Very political. Not everyone is treated fairly. Performance reviews are often very late, sometimes up to a year late. Senior management seems afraid of John Calamos. They are not empowered to make decisions.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop micro managing your senior management. You pay them a lot of money. Let them do their jobs.

Pros

I was once proud to say it had a great reputation. Free lunch, located in burbs, parking, awesome building with great technology.

Cons

Management has no idea what they are doing. STAY AWAY!!

Advice to Senior Management

John needs to step down as CEO so every little detail does not get bottle-necked up to him. Let leaders/managers lead/manage!

Pros

Perks like free lunch and snacks each day. Covered parking. Compensation okay. Benefits are pretty standard - medical, dental, free vision, profit sharing.

Cons

Management is not utilized to make decisions and move the company along. All decisions have to go through John Calamos which causes a lot of time to be wasted.

Advice to Senior Management

You pay your management quite a lot to make decisions. Let them do their jobs.

Pros

Free lunch (literally). Covered parking. Decent benefits. Good support to pursue the CFA (which is very much valued at Calamos).

Cons

Pay is horrid for the jr analyst position and doesn't get much better as you advance. Not much opportunity to prove yourself for the first few years outside of filing papers, making copies, data entry, etc. Wish I had those years back (huge opportunity cost in terms of knowledge not gained as a result of not doing research and very poor pay for the amount of time/work invested. You work a LOT...especially on meaningless tasks...and get paid very little). There are definitely better opportunities out there (which I've discovered). Turnover is high and sr turnover appears to have gotten worse since I've left. It doesn't look like anything has improved.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve communication (and review times). My reviews became so late that I forgot my anniversary date.