Merrill Lynch Reviews

Pros

Good name, good resume builder. Very respected name in the financial world. No pay but got college credit hours for the internship

Cons

Cold calling on the phone all day is a waste of my talents and skills. I wish I got to do more hands on stuff.

Advice to Senior Management

If I were to offer advice I would like to do more as an intern and be a part of the whole process.

Pros

Really great people and company environment. From the secretary to Managing Director I felt welcome from day one. Great company platform.

Cons

That they are owned by Bank of America. The internship that I had for the previous summer was an unpaid internship.

Advice to Senior Management

The program was extremely helpful and gave me a great understanding of exactly what is takes to become a successful financial advisor.

Pros

Company is investing many resources into LOB, a very competitive salary with an incentive structure that is geared towards doing the best for the client.
-Great heritage and name recogniction, unmatched resources when it comes to research and unbiased opinions.
-Very specific job roles, allows you to focus on your task at hand and be judged as so.
-Good benefits, however less since BofA merger.

Cons

-Very new program (Merrill Edge) so it is being built from the ground up.
-To much HR and compliance influence over process, makes doing business hard.
-retail banking is a very unsaviory business with unsavioury managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Make things more streamlined and always keep client in mind, when making decisions, not profit.

Pros

Entrepreneurial spirit and innovative comp-structure (FA's paid for commercial banking deals, consumer lending/mortgages, etc.).
Substantial Firm investment in technology (although a few years back now and in need of another round).
Management gets out of the way and lets experienced advisors run their businesses.

Cons

Admin-support is extremely light unless production >= $1.5MM.
Management is tolerated rather than respected at the local level (showy, political, very poor sales coaching)
New advisor ("PMD") training program has an astronomical wash-out rate. Only a natural born-hunter has a prayer of making it and, even then, if they move quickly. Nothing wrong with hunters, of course, but it completely prevents those who may be gifted investors with the ability to close deals and effectively run a practice from being discovered. It also leads to a much more unimpressive knowledge-base, compared with other WM firms and is a narrow-minded waste of talent.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider making a mandatory "internship" part of the PMD program, where newly-minted FA's work as analysts for senior FA's during their first 6, 12, or 18 months. Ideally, the senior FA would bring them in on meetings to take notes, have them prepare materials for client-appointments, maintain CRM, perform prospecting/market research, learn systems, style and strategy. Then, you can either cut them loose or, if they develop a great partnership with their FA, let them stay on as an IA or partner as an FA. This program would save you millions in wasted salary expense (for washouts that you paid but got nothing for in return), and provide talented veteran FA's the extra support they need to get up to $1.5MM (but can't because they don't have the capacity or CA support).

Pros

Great work environment and learning place

Cons

As an intern you are not given full attention

Pros

Good reputation, smart people, laid back

Cons

Private client wealth management was very slow when I was there. I spent a lot of time doing data entry and finding company contact info.

Pros

some brokers are great to work with

Cons

- turnover in management annually
- disjointed office environment
- lack of information

Advice to Senior Management

clearer communication

Pros

it was a great oppurtunity they allowed me to visit other departments and i was able to get a good understanding of industry

Cons

pay was not as much as others are getting
caf was not good
nothing too major good expierence while i was there

Advice to Senior Management

get away from bank of america, merrill is one thing that is doing good over there and would be better by itself

Pros

everyone was very nice but they simply followed the investing advice from corporate. it was a really easy job if you can land it.

Cons

Worked in a very small office in Southampton with only 13 Financial advisers. Not sure how the rest of the corporate culture is throughout the other offices but would not work there again.

Advice to Senior Management

require more competence from your employees. the secretaries and assistances did much more work than the financial adisors ever did.

Pros

Good Salary, work, location. Good brand name.

Cons

Lay offs, canteen facility not good.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop lay off.