Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Reviews

Pros

Fair salary and bonus program. If you did well and proved yourself you were compensated very well. Great opportunities to grow your career, plenty of opportunity for upward or lateral movement. Advancement was supported by Mgt

Cons

Work life balance was a little tough, depending on the area you worked.. Not a 9-5 company.

Pros

Cool working environment. Independence , flexibility and benifts

Cons

Limited technology exposure, lengthy and time consuming processes.

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

1) Great Benefits
2) Ability to move within the organization
3) Great pay if you negotiate it upfront .
4) Good work life balance in some groups

Cons

1) Lot of politics
2) Frequent re-organizations and changes within the company. No stability in senior management.
3) New hires can be hired at much higher salaries.A person hired at a lower level could have much higher salary than yours.
4) Work life balance can be bad in some groups.
5) Lots of employees in IT are not proficient in their fields.

Advice to Senior Management

Get some stability in Senior Management. Stop continuous reorganization and changes.it is bad for employee morale.Btw, Peter Cieszko is long gone . This is the third time in as 5 years that the President has changed.

Pros

Good environment, Good employee benifits, good at pay

Cons

No onsite for long term.

Advice to Senior Management

n/a

Pros

Very good job growth, I really like the people that I work with and my boss is extremely competent

Cons

Location, I am looking to get into the Boston location of Fidelity and get into the investment department in the future

Advice to Senior Management

I am extremely satisfied with the leadership at fidelity. It is good to work for an employer with job growth

Pros

Nice people, decent pay, friendly management

Cons

Rigid schedule, extreme oversight with time, language used

Advice to Senior Management

No comment

Pros

- Despite being an intern, I was handed a sizeable amount of responsibility
- Worked on meaningful tasks and treated like any other equal employee - not given the undesirable work that others didn't want

Cons

- Praise for hard or good work isn't handed out as often as it could be
- Promotion structure seems quite rigid; working at a position for a number of years seemed almost a requisite for any sort of promotion

Advice to Senior Management

Find more ways to reward employees for hard work. The lack of reward makes the company feel impersonal and the management seems distant. There's also not much of a close-knit company culture. The atmosphere seldom appeared anything other than individualised, instead of everyone pulling together to meet a collective goal.

Pros

Fidelity employs some of the brightest, most innovative and dedicated people in the industry. The culture is high energy and fast-paced so you'll never be bored. Most people are willing to step up and share their expertise while fighting fires (if you know which group/s and which person, within that group, to ask). Most people in support/ops are required to work an excessive number of hours each week (usually 60+) but you can learn more at Fidelity in 1 year than you would learn at another investment firm.

Cons

The culture can be highly stressful at the best of times but numerous Reductions in Force (RIF's) over the past several years have impacted morale and compounded the stress level. Entire groups have been RIFed, regardless of the criticality of their function or their individual performance ratings. I know of numerous high-quality, highly respected people who have been let go as part of the on-going re-org, so performance, dedication and a good review rating won't save you from a RIF if your group is a focus. Reviews for bonuses and raises seem to be based less on performance than on the corporate review paradigm, which dictates that a manager must assign a specific number of satisfactory, sub-standard and outstanding ratings (example - a manager with 10 direct reports can be given the directive that of their 10 direct reports, they must have 1 employee rated sub-standard and only 1 rated outstanding. The other 8 must be rated Proficient/Satisfactory, regardless of performance. Due to Fido having such a high number of exceptionally bright and dedicated people, who step up when they see a problem, it is fairly common to find groups where the majority (if not all) of the team members deserve an Outstanding rating. With the existing paradigm, only 1 can receive that rating and receive a fair bonus/raise. Eight of the others will receive a Proficient/Satisfactory rating and receive very small bonus/raises. And one of those 10 people will receive a rating of N ('Needs Improvement'), which prohibits a raise/bonus and tags them as a probability for the next RIF - and you can't internally transfer if you received a rating of N). Promotions are also tied to review ratings. Before I left, the policy was that an employee had to receive 2 consecutive reviews of above Satisfactory/Proficient to qualify for a possible promotion. That did not ensure they would receive the promotion, it just meant that they qualified for a possible promotion, if one was available. There is little to no work/life balance and based on the review paradigm, there is no financial incentive for regularly sacrificing your personal life to protect their reputation and business interest.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to figure out how you want this company structured, implement a logical re-org to bring it there (and fully communicate the plan to your employees for pity sake!) and be done with the RIF cycles. Fidelity is quickly developing a reputation in the industry as the last 'company of choice' to work for, due to the excessive number of RIF's, arbitrary/political review process and the constant re-orgs. If you can not achieve internal stability, the 'best and brightest' will only accept employment with Fidelity until they find a company where they don't feel like they're being over-worked, under-valued and constantly waiting for a RIF ax to fall. The RIF cycles negatively impact your existing employees, not just those RIFed. Productivity goes completely out the window during RIF weeks because people are distracted and spend time networking, in order to have a jump on things if they're caught in that cycle. Additionally, your current employees are losing key contacts for projects and production support issues. This is causing even more time to be lost while they try to figure out how to bridge those gaps. As a side-note, please remember that former employees can be Fidelity's greatest champions or worst detractors. During the 2-4 week RIF transition period, before turning in their badge and vacating the building, they should not be treated/dismissed as non-entities by senior management (I did not experience this but saw several former colleagues, who deserved better, having to deal with this). The last experience with the company will leave the strongest impression and that is what they're going to share with the outside world.

Pros

This used to be a wonderful place to work. Now, even through staff may be all highly competent, you will be ranked on a bell curve. Expect layoffs every year. It is highly competitvie internally and lots of favoritism.

Check rank on the Country's Companies For Working Parents list -- it will not make the top 50% is my estimation.

Due to employees not moving on frrm Fidelity no one was getting promoted. To resolve this issue and to ensure all the competent highly paid workers were shown the door to make way for new and inexperienced people to come on board, Fidelity was able to save lots of $. This does happen with many compnaies, and finanical services was hit hard in the past few years. However, this started before that economic crisis.

They work you hard which is fine. Just don't expect to be fairly rated, and don't count on the bonus coming through.

Great place several years ago, but now it is cut throat and highly political.
Other firms seem to be paying a lot more than Fidelity.

Cons

Be prepared for change all of the time and "ride the wave." Ther eare many layoffs, reorgs, and other stressful changes.

Advice to Senior Management

Try working elsewhere for a reality check.

Pros

Privately held - Able to invest in long term w/o quarterly earnings pressure

Cons

Constant reorganizations - As if exec management thinks company's problems can be solved by constantly rotating senior team

Advice to Senior Management

Stabilize the organization and quit laying off peope to boost share earnings for most senior people