Edward Jones Reviews

Pros

The training is fantastic! Good model.

Cons

Only works if your are comfortable and good at door knocking.

Pros

Healthy culture, provides necessary training

Cons

Politics between offices can be ridiculous

Pros

Some of the Pros for working at Edward Jones include : :
great work life balance
flexible hours
decent benefits

Cons

Some of the Cons for working at Edward Jones include : :
Compensation is lacking
Some management needs more training

Advice to Senior Management

Some advice for management would be to give some recognition and reward when an associate does a good job. Be quick to recognize, appreciate and reward those who support the management.

Pros

company recognition, no overhead, BOA to work for you, family oriented, no proprietary products, complete autonomy over your own success.

Cons

over crowded markets because the partners finally realized it helps their partnership bonuses each year, too conservative with allowable investments, equities research is a joke (you'd be better of doing your own. If you want to trust them to tell you when to sell, be prepared for the stock to bottom out before the wire comes), out dated equipment (which they're working on), over crowded markets, variable conversation is VERY variable, STRESS, no family life (if holidays are important to you this isn't the place, expectations don't change based on number of selling days in the month so if you want to make your numbers out the gate you'd better not travel too far because Black Friday still needs 25 contacts filled in. Did I mention overcrowded markets? YOU WILL BE BROKE! FLAT BROKE for the first 3 years.

Advice to Senior Management

Corporate greed is taking over and it might not be so easy to see now. It's easy to look past with the nice bonus checks you're getting every year from your partnerships, but I'm telling you STOP OVERCROWDING MARKETS! You're cutting the ceilings out from every one of us when you do it! Overcrowding makes assets under management growth unsustainable for newbies, and only feeds the coffers for the vets. You want to grow? You need to limit turnover and it's huge for the newbies! We can't live on peanuts so adjust the beginning salary allotment. I have been all but bankrupt multiple times because I can't afford this plus daycare plus the mortgage.

Pros

Working as a financial advisor at Edward Jones offers the opportunity to work in an autonomous environment and to be truly rewarded proportionately to the effort expended.

Cons

Due to the autonomous nature of the financial advisor position, you can feel like and island at times. It is your responsibility to reach out for help. Your efforts at times are not immediately rewarded.

Advice to Senior Management

I think that the company is well managed.

Pros

-Terrible pay compared to competitors (Plan on saying in the same pay grade for 5+ years)
-Horrible benefits
-Very little paid time off
-No opportunity to advance career

Cons

-Work-life balance is pretty good
-The people are all nice and friendly
-Not much more good to say about this firm

Pros

If you like to work in a small office, it is you and your Financial Advisor. You get to know the clients you work with and have meaningful relationships. As long as you and your FA get along, you are like family.

Cons

The pay is moderate. I could make more doing the same job somewhere else although I know I would be working for many other FA's vs one, so I suppose it's not horrible.

Advice to Senior Management

They do a great job with communication, teaching, and acknowledgements. However I do wish for bigger raises where necessary (don't we all).

Pros

The license preparation program was excellent and designed to yield passing scores and high scores, which it does.
The training overall was very good and the facility in St. Louis was excellent.

Cons

Working from home without close support did not work for me being brand new to the business.
Initial field work was impossible to do without being able to discuss financial information.
There was weird vibe among veterans - almost cult-like, which made me slightly uncomfortable.

Pros

Autonomy, great people to work with, virtually unlimited support, partnership. Seriously got upset when I didn't bring my wife and kid to the Holiday party. Seriously could not have better training. No proprietary products which means you'll never have to compromise your integrity by being forced to sell a product. They are great for the family once you've made it. Until then, get used to reintroducing yourself to your kids on Sundays.

Cons

Door to Door Sales! If you don't like going door to door and pedaling financial products, don't even consider this. STRESS!!!! After your salary goes away every month starts at 0 unless you inherit a book. 70 hours a week is a light week starting out. Senior management figured out that the more people you pack into one place, the more their partnership bonuses pay. That makes it harder for new people to succeed in their markets because we're all tripping all over each other. Imagine door knocking an entire neighborhood 2 weeks after someone else just did it. I'm the 7th advisor to take over my book of business. Every neighborhood around my office has been knocked by every advisor before me. I was promised 2 years in my area without anyone else being put on top of me. Within 1 year 2 people started on the same street within a mile of my office. There are 13 offices here in a town of 40k people. In case you don't know...that's too many. Within 5 miles of my office there are 6 offices, including 1 million dollar producer. The ups and downs will get to you in this business, and the best advice I have for anyone is "embrace the suck". Seriously, "embrace the suck". If you make it, you're set for life. Otherwise, no. New hires can't afford to do what the vets are doing to be successful. The only way to make this model sustainable is to develop a continuous revenue stream so that you're not having to ring the cash register every month for 20 years of your career. The problem with that is, you can't afford to put people in fee based accounts and keep your job. Senior partners have 50k/month coming in from advisory solutions, but advisory solutions doesn't pay up front, so new advisors can't afford to do it and make their numbers. For the lucky few in great situations that aren't overcrowded, it works. For most, realize that last month they had a net reduction of advisors by 55. It's okay because they'll put 56 through next month.

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out how to get advisory solutions to pay up front, otherwise the path to long term sustainability is near impossible for the new guy.

Pros

Work alone
If you make target, and are legal and ethical they leave you alone
No politics you need be involved in for success
An assistant from day one

Cons

We hire too many people unprepared to do the work.
We have a lot of competent people leave to other firms - with no real concern or actions taken by HO