LPL Financial Reviews

Former Employee – worked at LPL Financial as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – Large business base
Willingness to work towards advisor experience

Cons – Upper management has a difficult time shifting
Too much dependance on contractors
Upper management not willing to invest in IT

Advice to Senior Management – Spend more money innovating with technology and invest more in employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at LPL Financial

Pros – Technology up to date. Talented Individuals.

Cons – Too much political spin and not enough straight talk.
Few leaders and alot of managers inhibits aggressive moves to improve.

Advice to Senior Management – Be honest with your employees. They know the truth anyhow...

Current Employee – been working at LPL Financial full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – ability to work independently, freedom, some room to grow

Cons – some room to grow, low-end salary

Advice to Senior Management – career development

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at LPL Financial full-time for more than a year

Pros – best platform and programs geared to maximize growth at all income levels

Cons – if your new as always the con is building your book of business enough to maintain your salary

Advice to Senior Management – Great job

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at LPL Financial full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Largely recognized name, lots of investment options and stable company

Cons – Ever changing forms which make it difficult to navigate the resource center, lack of knowledge and high turnover on service 360 teams, lack of communication between departments. The alternative investment dept is a nightmare.

Advice to Senior Management – Create routine processes, communicate efficiently and train adequately

Current Employee – been working at LPL Financial full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – You can rise through the ranks of this company with very little expertise (show up and don't make mistakes) and earn a moderate salary. However, even the pay is not consistent with other wall street firms. (See cons below for why)
The bar is set very low here.

Cons – LPL pays it's advisors the highest payout in the industry. This is not done through innovation or technology advantages, it's done through cutting regulatory corners, outsourcing critical business functions and paying low wages to everyone from executives to front line staff. (Thus often attracting a lack of expertise in key roles). LPL's customer facing technology is out dated.

Management is aloof and the culture is one of blame and never ending crisis. (It's always a crisis for the above reasons, money isn't invested in smart ways and corners are cut across the board)

Advice to Senior Management – -

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at LPL Financial full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – LPL has an above average 401K lineup, and the benefits are pretty good.
It is a great place to build a base knowledge about the industry, and the potential for an upward career path.

Cons – It has been frustrating with the people that get promoted into Manager, AVP, and VP positions. Although they may have the technical knowledge, too many have almost no understanding of what it takes to be a great manager of people. At the same time, this may be because being a manager of people is an acquired skill, which takes not only time, but a desire to learn. And if there is no incentive to try to get the best out of your employees, eventually they become disengaged. Also, almost everyone seems to be paid below average for the industry, and raises for the majority are 2% per year. It takes an act of God to get more than this. Lastly, since the major outsourcing initiative was announced in February, which is still pending, the morale in the affected departments is noticeably low. All in the name of improved efficiency and expense management. But such is the world of capitalism.

Advice to Senior Management – It will be interesting to see how you treat the employees who remain and don't get outsourced. The longer this environment exists, the more that good talented employees who have been with the company for a long time will be looking to leave. Also, giving a 2% raise for top performers that are in the middle of their comp ratio provides absolutely no incentive to work hard. You should revisit this, as it is quite the disincentive to get the most out of your employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at LPL Financial full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – A lot of friendly coworkers

Cons – You might be rotated to different teams often and it is hard to move up in the company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at LPL Financial as a contractor

Pros – Some people there are friendly.

Cons – From my experience, temporary employee does not have any opportunities to learn, to do the real work. Temporary employees can finish all the work that are assigned to them without brain. The worse experience was, if the management did not have enough work for temporary employees to do, they just tell the recruiter to terminate the employment because the employee did not do the work. If the employee asked for work from them, and they did not give any. How could the employee do the work?!!!!!!

The other thing was if the employee need some time off to take care of personal things. The management approve it. But later on, the management told the recruiter this employee did not work because they took too much time off. If the management is not ok with the time off, they can just do not approve it. The thing made me angry was I gave them notice ahead of time and received approval from the management. But two days after, they told my recruiter they were not ok with that.

It is not fair to be given a "not-doing-the-work" hat just because of those.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at LPL Financial as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Have an opportunity to get some experience on the wealth management industry.
Learn a multitude of different ways to succeed as a financial planner.

Cons – Lots of delegation to busy work
Not a lot of room for growth
Working environment is very dry and boring

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend