Morningstar Reviews

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

Pros – Great company to start a career at. The compensation is a little low but the company is young and the work is very flexible. You also have a lot of flexibility to move around the company.

Cons – Compensation can be a little low. Some of the divisions have a bottle neck after the first couple of promotions.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Great place to build a career if you join early.

Cons – Upward mobility is sometimes lacking.

Advice to Senior Management – Encourage in-house talent as opposed to hiring from outside to fill top level positions.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – - Collaborative and team-oriented culture where most employees truly care about their respective projects
- Rapport among employees is like that among casual friends
- Many teams have excellent morale and a strong sense of purpose
- Work-life balance ratio is amazing; you can take a vacation almost whenever you want, for how long you want, and it's not uncommon to work 7-hour days

Cons – - Compensation is variable; pay raises/bonuses are all over the map, with the company erring on the conservative side for most employees
- Some of the technical employees are very hard to work with because they a) speak little English b) are in China/India c) are difficult people to begin with and/or d) are not motivated. Every employee should be required to learn about our clients, who they are, how we serve them, etc. We should also treat employees as "internal" clients, if you will.

Advice to Senior Management – Given the fast-paced and demanding nature of our work, Morningstar should work on hiring people that have a history of being easy to work with (through references, multiple interviews, etc.) and then truly rewarding those who shine in the workplace so as to retain talent. "Rewarding" in the past has sometimes meant getting a 2% pay raise when your team's revenue just grew 15% YOY, so management should realize that employees know how their groups are performing, and expect to be given raises accordingly.

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

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

Pros – Good opportunities for students in between their bachelor and graduate degrees. Brand name. Growing. Somewhat international. Very focused on mutual funds.

Cons – Opportunity comes at the price of being overworked and underpaid. Emphasis is on keeping costs low in North America and outsourcing to China. Lots of politics and nasty behavior behind closed doors. Unless you started the company with Joe Mansueto, you are usually out in a few years. There are few opportunities for seasoned executives and limited room at the top. The perennial insiders make all the big bucks from their stock positions. Company has lost its way since going public.

Advice to Senior Management – Change out the Chicago insiders who have been with Joe for years and have stopped innovating. They will not move on until they are pushed. Return to the principles that were behind the company's founding: Investors First, etc. That's been lost in the short-term focus on earnings and stock price.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Morningstar

Pros – They have a very laid back culture and atmosphere. You did not have to dress formally, also soft drinks were included. Also you do a lot of work with co-workers and learn a great deal about investment funds.

Cons – They provide very little training and I felt that my tasks were too repetitive. Also at times I would sit for hours without work. It got very boring.

Advice to Senior Management – Please provide a more structured programs for interns.

Former Employee – worked at Morningstar full-time for more than a year

Pros – I enjoyed working with all my colleagues. The environment is open and inviting. I felt comfortable walking up to anybodys office and asking them questions. The office has an open setup with VPs sharing cubicle space with other employees. Also, great snacks in the kitchen and the HR organized several fun events pretty often!

Cons – The training and learning opportunities to help career advancement could be a little more streamlined. Also, I felt I could have benefitted from knowing our clients a little better to better cater to them.

Advice to Senior Management – Encourage more dialogue between teams to avoid communication barriers.

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

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

Pros – Help the newbies form good disciplines of professional field.

Cons – some of the employees are a little bit cold and not that helpful in terms of career development.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Morningstar

Pros – Very Flexible. Open Culture within the company

Cons – Flat organization. Lot of re-org in recent years.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Morningstar full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – I worked at Morningstar for over 10 years and saw the company evolve from a true start-up to a maturing, global business. What made the company great in the early-mid 90s no longer sets it a part from the companies of today, however the ability to forge your own path is still attractive if you're an individual who can take initiative, network with the right people, and not wait for someone to offer you what you want in terms of more experience. The flexible schedule is the real standout in terms of strong Pros - very few companies get that people are not children and if you treat adults like professionals and expect them to manage their time and take ownership of their work, they'll deliver and you can avoid a 'clock in, clock out' mentality that comes with a paternalistic approach to vacation/sick time.

Cons – Executive management consists of folks who have been at the company 16+ years and it is starting to show in a negative way - lack of focus in terms of direction and vision, inability to commit to certain goals in a tangible way (e.g. put the resources against the products that have the most potential for growth and kill the ones that don't make money) and aversion to the types of calculated risks that will be necessary to avoid Morningstar from becoming another Value Line.

Many folks mention a 'flat hierarchy' and while that can be helpful, I think it's starting to work against the company. The people in the executive ranks have made their millions; the middle managers and their teams who are the ones cranking out all the work get paid below market wages but are expected to do the job of 3+ people. Burn out is common and if you're good at your job, the expectations keep getting higher.

No mentoring for managers and no career path development. HR is a disappointment - while the HR management claims to care about employees and the desire to be transparent, an initiative in 2012 to address salary concerns went no where and died after several months.

Advice to Senior Management – I know no one wants to hear this, but lay people off. Take a good hard look at who is producing and who is not and cut those that under perform so you can pay people what they're worth. Morningstar runs lean in many areas, but there's still bloat and management needs to start reading the tea leaves before talent starts leaving in droves. Morningstar is in an 'adolescent' stage of its development and still thinks it's the 'new wunderkind' but in reality, it is no longer. This can be turned around if they cut products that aren't performing and invest in the ones that are. Also, redefine the tuition reimbursement program as it's turned into an MBA factory for all the new MDPs that we keep hiring. The future can be bright, but not without some difficult decisions and a clear direction.

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

Former Employee – worked at Morningstar full-time

Pros – If you need a job, Morningstar's ok. Expect little more from your time there. What the company doesn't offer in interesting work, industry avg. compensation, bureaucratic competency, or enjoyable social events, it attempts to make up for in:

1) Management that seems reluctant to downsize
2) Promoting those that stay at the company the longest
3) Casual Culture
4) Solid benefits (Medical, Dental, 401K)
5) Partial tuition reimbursement: CFA & MBA ($17,500/ year + 2 yr post-graduation commitment to work for M*, or all tuition $ must be paid back). High placement at Booth & Kellogg (Part-time only).
6) Bagels on Wednesday's, soda daily
7) Generous vacation/ sick day/ sabbatical policy (Can somewhat vary under different managers)
8) Nice mission statements

Cons – Many departments are slow moving, dead end, and don't care to develop employees. Most positions are uninteresting, unfulfilling, and inadequately compensated.

Despite office congeniality, morale is low, team work mentality rare, and back biting common. Real incentive/reward for hard work, or growth of earning potential, doesn't exist (except on some sales teams). Business is challenged and in an awkward stage of development.

Confused and/or false messaging from upper management is persistent. Same as any other company, you can't trust the rhetoric. The execution of principles and policies is inconsistent across departments and managers. An innovative and entrepreneurial spirit no longer exists, having been replaced with an attempt to maintain status-quo. Value-creating start-up has been traded for an institutional deal-making culture. But, the transition has been managed poorly.

The realities of daily business are very different from the recruitment pitch and stated principals. It's no longer a "think different" type of place; it's products are not all that excellent. Expect a difficult time transitioning jobs in house or progressing beyond your present position.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in high-quality technology, programmers/engineers, data analysis tools, and effective QA of data accuracy. Without this, the strategy to generate more demand from institutional clients for products is undermined. Substantial numbers of talented senior-leaders and employees leaving the company is also expensive and damaging to morale.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend