Merrill Lynch Reviews

Pros

Good place to learn and work with associates that are dedicated to what they do

Cons

They are big and even bigger now with BOA so they have to manage big

Advice to Senior Management

Provide more career paths and advancement opportunities

Pros

The breadth and depth of talent across product areas is incredible.

Cons

Too many layers of managers who are out for themselves.

Advice to Senior Management

Financial Advisors do not make good managers. A leader is someone who lifts those around him.

Pros

Huge organization and theoretically wide selection of jobs worldwide, though mostly on low and mid level. Fairly good brand recognition globally.

Cons

Job growth and benefit are very team specific. So your benefits and treatment will be heavily depended on how well your team does and how well your direct boss wants to treat you. Management is very number-driven.

Advice to Senior Management

Many client facing technology and services are not top notch among competitors. More collaborations among funtional groups are greatly needed.

Pros

Merrill Lynch/Bank of America has a well recognized name, reasonable compensation, some good experiences and reasonable work/life balance. Some ability to move around firm.

Cons

The combined company is struggling under its size to cope with the dynamic environment. Numerous units with a belief in their independance makes change more difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

The Merrill Lynch Bank of America has resulted in a massive firm that is difficult to manage. Not sure there is a one size fits all possible for consolidating BAC banking model with ML FA model.

Pros

originally the reputation was fantastic. That perception has changed dramatically.
The level of training is very good if you are making yoru numbers and advancing, if not, they cut their losses quickly and move on.
We did have every available resource int he financial world at our disposal & most everyone wanted our business badly so they that helped a great deal in getting started. I had a great deal of freedom which I enjoyed and which helped me to bring in a lot of new business early on. If they see you work hard and produce they are willing to let you do your own thing. The key is to keep producing.
I do have to say that our Client Associates were 2nd to non e int he industry and run circles around all others. They are a major plus for an FA.
personal perks, free lunches, tickets to events, tickets for clients and client appreciation was very good and helpful.
Research was excellent up to 2009

Cons

Local branch managers also are producers as well. this is a major hinderance. In my personal case, my manager would always find out what was working for me and share the info with his partners and have them compete directly with me. that was a downer to many FA's that worked there. At no time during my 6 year tenure at Merrill did my local branch manager do ANYTHING to personally promote me or help me move my business forward . HE was concerned with moving his own career forward.
Branch managers that were producers could not be trusted. I know mine couldn't be.
Upper level management excessive bonus's and mismanagement that eventually brought Mother Merill down.
The culture definitely changed after BOA bought Merrill

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest to all Fa's and give them full disclosure, not just the corner office producers.
Treat all employers more fairly.
Get rid of all producing branch managers and hire sales managers that WANT the other FA's to succeed rather than just being concerned with their own book and income.
PAY your CA's more! You constantly lose highly trained, excellent CA's to other company's because of the inability to realize they are the face and voice of Mother Merrill.

Pros

Best things were able to talk to financial advisors, get inside look at daily operations, analyzed investments and using Merrill's resources (reports, etc.).

Cons

Most of the work was administrative in nature, alot of busy work, making calls, fixing printers, copying and printing reports.

Advice to Senior Management

Perhaps make the intern program more structured to teach more than just keep busy. I learned a lot but felt that it would have been better to have a week by week itinerary to go through.

Pros

Merrill Lynch is a prestigious international financial institution. Working there provides employees with valuable experience, a recognizable name to put on their resumes, and the opportunity to succeed in the financial services industry.

Cons

Being that I only interned there for four months, there is not much I can say regarding the downsides of working at ML specifically. Of course the financial services industry is shrinking and is facing increasing regulation, but that is a generality.

Advice to Senior Management

I gained very valuable experience during the course of my internship. Nevertheless, I feel as though I could have easily handled greater responsibility.

Pros

ML-BofA provides one of the widest array of solutions imaginable, which equals to opportunities.

Cons

The public's view of Merrill after the 2008-09 debackle. Ufortunately, people (including me) are generally too ignorant to see the real issue. Has anyone ever voiced concerns to Harvard on why they are not teaching inalienable values and principles? It was the lack of principles and values that made the Harvard graduated CEOs to make arrogant decisions. Wake up people.

Advice to Senior Management

We need more innovative marketing initiatives like Merrill had in the 80's and 90's.

Pros

Incredible place to learn about new technologies
Great environment for building your career
Wonderful opportunities to learn about the Stock Market industry and new processes

Cons

Stagnet career growth hindered by constant cost cutting, high turnover and the merger between BoFA and Merrill Legacy employees.
Constant downsizing due to unstable market place
Very poor balance of work to life ratio

Advice to Senior Management

Stop worrying about the stock price of the firm's performance & shareholders and focus more on customer's attention and also provide more employees with direction. Break the walls down between departments to create more synergy between organizations instead of the BoFA & Merrill way!! Constantly cutting back on staff every two to three years to save on costs only hurts the firm creditabily and constantly causing them to lose top talent.

Pros

Good culture, guarantee work life balance. People work well together, no back stabbing .
Could be the over Canadian culture. A place where you can make friends

Cons

Not much opportunity for vertical movement. That could be a Canada thing as things move slightly slower in the country

Advice to Senior Management

More aggressively in looking for expanding the business, and create opportunity for their employees. With focus on the 3 key streams: revenue generation, cost saving and risk control