Pros

There is a lot of opportunity at New York Life. If you are of a sales mentality, the financial gains could be great. There is a lot of freedom as most managers are not down your neck. The company is probably the best life inurance company around right now.

Cons

If you are not a sales minded individual, this could be tough. You are expected to make contacts and constatly be meeting new people to try and generate clients. The freedom is also a con because you can get lost in it if you dont have structure.

Advice to Senior Management

More support. The classroom training is top notch, but most managers are too busy to spend more than 20-30 minutes a week individually with new agents. Some new agents are hung out to dry and would benefit from a manager pairing him/her up immediately with an experienced agent to learn how to run your business.

Pros

There is a healthy work / life balance, but at the same time, if you seek out opportunties there is much rewarding work to be had. Senior management do not spend adequate amount of time in discovering or managing talent, so you have to toot your own horn.

Cons

Senior management hardly spend any time in talent management, although there is an ongoing push for this. When in need for senior management, they hire from outside, which is a srong sign of how poor a job management is doing of cultivating future leaders within the company. Everyone get demoralized when senior opening are filled from outside companies, while managemtn keeps stating that we are number one in the industry. Obviously this is not case from an HR view... Although that might be changing.

Advice to Senior Management

Look around. Get away from your desk and walk around. Share a cup of coffee with a junior analyst . You will learni more in those 10 mins than any management report could tell you.

Pros

Good comission levels and great opportunity for advancement.
Your numbers produced as an agent are the only thing that matters when determining if you can go into management.

Cons

100 percent comission after a few years.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop charging for every litle thing.

Pros

Training, support, and the company reputation is commendable. They also provide you with a "training" period to uniformly see if this is a good match between the agent and the company.

Cons

Some of the terms of the contract is not explained in detail. You really have to ask for the details of the benefits and the compensation. Also, there is not a true lead system except for the initial warm market leads that you walk in with.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide better company leads for the reps. Also, be more upfront about the terms of the benefits provided to the agents.

Pros

The hours are nondemanding and flexible. The workplace is not stressful.

Cons

There is a good amount of employee drama ALL the time. The work is incredibly, mindnumbingly boring. The pay is awful.

Advice to Senior Management

To cut down on workplace drama, speak to employees as equals. Elucidate not only the content of any changes that are being made but the reasoning behind said changes. Frankness is appreciated. Also, at least hear employees out when they petition for a raise.

Pros

The work life balance at new york life is great. The hours in some departments are 8-4 or 9-5 and nobody looks at you cross-eyed when you leave, because they believe in the actual hours. It is the company you keep.

Cons

Promotion is arbitrary, even among the high achievers. It's an old line company that takes a long time to move things forward.

Advice to Senior Management

Do a real look around you. Sometimes squeaky wheels are just squeaky. Promote your well oiled machines for real talent advancement

Pros

great product training, great product knowledge

Cons

no maketing assistance. company leads that are worse than leads purchased from internet sites. no leadership. An air of simply churning out agents in order to get most amount of premium and then not have to pay residuals (as they've upset agent so much the agent leaves company).

Advice to Senior Management

why would you listen now? I believe that this is actually your business model. When I have some money, I will be taking good ol New York Life to court.

Pros

New York Life provided me with meaningful work from the outset. The work life balance was very good. Excellent work environment.

Cons

Opportunities for advancement and feedback were limited. Compensation was low compared with other companies. Management seemed somewhat out of touch.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should provide lower level workers with more exposure. There should be more interaction among workers and more teamwork and group projects.

Pros

Decent marketing support, but difficult to prospect in the middle of an economic downturn. Comparable with similar companies in the industry.

Cons

Marketing support is not sufficient and the emphasis on small policies instead of serious financial advising is good for entry level hires, but not experienced reps.

Advice to Senior Management

The monday "phone a thon" is not helpful. It produces useless leads for tiny clients instead of opportunities to advise high net worth clients.

Pros

very professional and great company to be a part of

Cons

the interview process takes a while to complete, you have to be licensed, and they will want to do an extensive background check on you

Advice to Senior Management

I think that company does a great job during the interview process, I wish that I would have been more prepared with a good knowledge of the company. Post more company info online