Countrywide Financial Reviews

Pros

Countrywide is a good place to work because you are working for a large financial firm where many different opportunities for growth are available. This company encourages moving into different positions in various departments throughout your career at the company. Having this experience in different fields make an individual more valuable, as you acquire many different skillsets, which always looks good on a resume. You are able to achieve this all while staying under the umbrella of Countrywide and maintaining job stability.

Cons

Countrywide can be an extremely disorganized organization. One of the favorite sayings is that if you don't understand a policy or procedure and ask 10 different people, you will get 10 different answers.

Advice to Senior Management

To treat everybody fairly and equally.

Pros

Training from the managers and the pay earned

Cons

We had to work a lot of hours to cover various time zones and the schedule wasnt always set.

Advice to Senior Management

keep communicating to the teams so they know what is going to happen

Pros

The company had very good CD and MMA rates which made it easier to hit my goals. The work environment is nice and I don’t have a manager over my shoulder constituently. Overall it is a great company to work for.

Cons

I would say there are only a few downsides to the company and the way the offices are set up. With there only being 1-2 employees in each office getting time off can be a little difficult some times. District manager was not educated at all in what I did on a day to day basis and didn't really provide any help in most situations.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend some time learning what your employees are doing day to day instead of just looking at the bottom line

Pros

Best place to learn mortgage industry; most senior management are real experts and live and die for mortgage operations. multipal level of career ladder to clime which itself serves as incentive for your hard work;

Cons

Top down management style, lower level employees has less say in project choice and even in their internal career path; you have to have your current boss Ok to move around; more often when you inform your manager about your leave, they start to treat you with fair compensation through a counter offer-- too late and waste of resources for both the company and employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect subordinate; provide more flexible internal transfer mechanism

Pros

The company offers a lot of trianing classes so that employees can broaden their skills and their knowledge. The overall environment is good and the people who work within the company are overall friendly.

Cons

There is a lack of career growth and nothing is defined on how you can grow your career or move forward in the business. Career paths overall are very vague. There is also little to no recognition for your hard work. Customer service seems to have good recognition but all other departments are highly lacking. You have to be willing to work very hard with no one seeming to notice.

Advice to Senior Management

To keep and retain employees you need to help them grow and help them move their careers forward, you can not let them stay in the same place with no recognition. Recognizing good work enables employees to know and understand they are doing a great job. Help motivate them to strive to do their best every day and work with them to expand their carrers.

Pros

Countrywide paid fairly well compared to other companies in the area and it wasn't a very strict interviewing processes. A lot of the people who work for the company are nice and intelligent.

Cons

They are extremely polictical, bloated bureaucracy; everyone seemed to have the title of VP, even if you were only truly a manager - complete title inflation. Poor equipment. If you are a Contractor (H1B Visa), countrywide (like most companies) is known to string you on about converting you. Very hierarchical company and you will not make more money than your manager, even if he/she has been with the company for 20 years and doesn't have the qualifications to lead you.

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce the title inflation, reduce the layers of management inbetween employees, better equipment!

Pros

cool place to stay but there is no much competence in mgmt good for work life balance

Cons

mgmt is not competent they try to micromanage people i had a bad experience when their hr back out on agreed salary since the projects vanished.

Advice to Senior Management

you are incompetent bunch of jokers.you will not get any better jobs

Pros

Pay is above average for similar positions at other companies.

Cons

Recently purchased by Bank of America, 401k matching is not in line with other companies, recent management change to Bank of America, Below avereage market rates for savings products and liquid accounts.

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

The company offered a brand name to be associated to. The mere mention of who you work for opened doors with prospective clients and business partners. The Countrywide University program was a great introduction into the mortgage banking industry for a recent college grad. It allowed you to rotate across the vast divisions of the company and get a feel for which one suited you best. Of course the right fit depended upon an opening but in most cases the participants I knew got in to the department they hoped for. Opportunity seemed plentiful and the future seemed bright for most.

Cons

At times the when expections were met, the support lacked to fulfill the goals attained.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to seize opportunities when they present themselves as they have done so in the past.

Pros

Not too many now. Now that Bank of America owns them there should be some stability. There were some great times, The systems were pretty good in the day and the pay was good. Benefits were good and training was top notch. I miss the old days, times were very good just two years ago!

Cons

Cuurent market, bad PR, reputation is shot. I think it will be best to wait and see what BOA does and what divisions are shut down. It will be hard to think WLD will be here in 5 years with the way things have gone.

Advice to Senior Management

Shouldnt have been so greedy, or we might still have a company.