Charles Schwab Reviews

Pros

- Good work life balance (you can almost get away with doing nothing)
- Good benefits
- Usually friendly people

Cons

- Compensation/Incentives package highly prohibitive (if you are towards the bottom of the pay range, you'll never catch your peers towards the upper end of the spectrum, regardless of how hard you work. The program favors the company.)
- Promotions into management nearly impossible unless you are one of the chosen few. Career paths have been defined and leadership development programs exist, but don't lead to growth opportunities.
- Middle management filled with yes men, don't expect your boss to set up to bat for you.
- Absence of mentoring and guidance to help individuals develop their skills and prepare for the next step of their career. Classes offered by Schwab's training department, but again don't lead to positive outcomes for employees.
- Management prescribes to the philosophy that engaged and happy employees will work for lower pay because of high job satisfaction. They forget a large number of employees are supporting families on less than $50K a year, which is pretty tough - I guess money isn't everything but it is pretty important when you practically live paycheck to paycheck.
- Not a growth company, resulting in limited growth opportunities and directions to move your career.
- Hiring managers are often unresponsive to internal applicant's request for informational interviews.
- Knowledge, skill, and abilities, get you nowhere; to be successful you need to communicate with force, confidence, and the assumption you are right (it is more important to be right than to do the right thing).
- Schwab is a classic bureaucracy, very conservative and risk averse.
- Recognition and appreciation are trivial and on the verge of insulting, unless you are in second grade.

Advice to Senior Management

Schwab is a great company and does fantastic things for its clients, but middle management does not adequately represent the front lines to senior leadership which is creating a unfavorable culture.

Pros

Close to home. Nice campus. Most peers seems nice and very willing to help out. Really my peers were the best part of the job. Some people dont mind call center jobs, this on is probably better because of no outbound calls.

Cons

As Im sure you heard salary is ridiculously low and very little other incentitives. Its a promotion if you take a lateral move with no pay increase. Unhealthy static work environment as you are tied to your desk and phone for 98% of the day taking call after call . 30 min lunch. Expensive and nasty cafeteria. It's a cost/call center where efficincy is the priority. Pay will always be low and every ounce of producitvity will be squeezed from you.

Advice to Senior Management

Throw everything out the window and start over.

Pros

Good opportunity for career advancement; caring work environment; company is going in the right direction and positioning itself for continued growth; good benefits; decent pay

Cons

Depending on part of the country you live in, career mobility/advancement can be limited; pay could be better;

Advice to Senior Management

Make financial consultants "wealth managers"/"wealth strategists" to truly embody comprehensive personal financial planning

Pros

development, good managers, great co-workers, opportunitites to get your securities licences, you will become a great communicator, positive attitude from managers and co workers

Cons

compensation, hours not very flexible, depending on your position, work itself can be tedious

Advice to Senior Management

it seems that they keep saying that "their door is always open" and they will listen to employees as well, however, they dont seem to act on what their employees are trying to say.

Pros

I like my supervisor and the people I work with and would like to stay; however, my temp assignement is ending at the end of December. The company has provided me with a very good salary and working conditions are excellent. The office/building are first rate, though a significant walk to BART. I have been free to work my own hours, and my supervisor is not a micro-manager. She is content to let me work on proejcts at my own speed in any manner I want. All in all, it has been a pleaser to work here.

Cons

I have applied for several permanent jobs at Schwab, but, unfortunately, with no job offer coming. It is very frustrating to read the job posting requirements, have the experience and the requirements they are looking for, and then not get the job. I really feel like after three months here, I have learned the job, and I wish they could open a requisition and keep me. Just as I am really beginning to learn the job's requirements and functions, I will be leaving. Does not make sense to me.

Advice to Senior Management

I only wish someone would take the time to get to know the company's contract employees and help them find a position rather than just tell those individuals to search the job postings and let us know what you're interested in.

Pros

Opinions of employees are valued. Schwab is a fierce competitor and generally does what it needs to do to compete on price and product. Very rarely do conflicts of interest fog decisions.

Cons

Schwab is a large company with the unfortunate downsides of bureaucracy of policies, technology, and red tape. Although I don't believe it is any worse than other large companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in state of the art technology for your employees and be mindful of the potential of over-assigning workloads which have the potential to have client experience suffer. Schwab has a solid reputation for quality customer service. Don't let that slip.

Pros

Name recognition within and outside the industry. It looks great on your resume.
Pretty fair work/life balance

Cons

Very low salary and horrible (expensive) benefits.
Uncertainty.
Too top heavy - Ive never seen so many managers and sr managers with no one reporting to them. Everyone is full of themselves and will backstab you to get ahead with the quickness!
Little room for growth unless you come into the company as a sr. manager. And even then, you have to fight for your claim and will probably never see it come to realization.

Pros

To get your broker training paid for and to gain experience. If you can handle this environment you can work anywhere.

Cons

Pay is terrible. Work is stressful. Answering phones all day makes you feel as though you are chained to your desk and isolated. Management shows no appreciation for the work you do.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more and appreciate employees. Quit reviews that are not beneficial to clients.

Pros

Founder vision is to make financial opportunities available to everyone, executive culture reflects that vision. Compensation is good compared to other similar jobs. Lots of opportunities to move sideways.

Cons

Operating efficiency programs have led to short term decisions, and some less than stellar offerings. Constant pressure to only deliver wins.

Advice to Senior Management

Get out of the ivory tower and meet employees. Don't accept undesirable actions from any leadership.

Pros

Opportunity to grow and obtain additional experience and licenses.

Cons

Salary is very low. Difficult to achieve additional salary as overtime is limited and reps are not paid any commissions.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow employees to give feedback without tracking comments to individual managers.