Prudential Reviews

Pros

Ability to learn and grow in your career. I worked with so very knowledgeable people. Team-work and information sharing is stressed. Good benefits.

Cons

Some managers/depts do not embrace working remotely or part-time.

Advice to Senior Management

No comment

Pros

A supportive culture.
Competitive pay
Good name to have on resume

Cons

I worked for a person who was a tyrant --great at controlling the group but not open to novelty.
People not very out going--most were content on just having a job and doing the 9-5pm. Rarely found passion among the employees.
Intellectually not a stimulating environment

Advice to Senior Management

Insure that an environment that fosters as well as rewards creativity is implement even down to the group level.

Pros

regular salary, varied project assignments, friendly staff generally speaking, technical staff pretty skilled, various systsms to work on, many areas to move around in

Cons

poor and unskilled management, salary frozen forever, salary does not reflect role in company, too much competition for places, too much discipline

Advice to Senior Management

hire skilled managers who are qualified for their area and reduce top exec salaries as junior salary levels are dreadful

Pros

The position allows for work life balance and a lot of flexibility. A lot of continuous training and perks for those us once we qualify.

Cons

weak comp plan for new people, a lot of money needed up front to invest if you want to really be successful.

Pros

flex hours
work in office or home
great benefits

Cons

low compensation, limited growth
odd policies

Pros

benefits are good
decent pay and are reviewed often
nice facilities
company uses current program versions and are always willing to train

Cons

all depends on your manager

Pros

Good professional working environment at this company.

Cons

Sometimes not informed of major company changes

Advice to Senior Management

Be informative to all employees.

Pros

Benefit package, great people, learning opportunities

Cons

Limited opportunities in some areas.

Advice to Senior Management

Please have more consideration regarding working remotely when posting for positions in other sites.

Pros

Great name
Strong Financial Outlook
Good number of Products to offer
Licensing fees are reimbursed
Very in-depth training on selling
Decent price on medical benefits

Depending on who your manager is, you will get a lot of support when you are doing well and when not so well. However, there are managers that will make your life hell if you do not bring in enough GDR (sales). I was fortunate to have a manager who was very supportive of me (even taking money out of his own pocket to help me buy leads or lunch - just unbelievably admirable of a guy) up until the end when I just couldn't survive anymore. If you have a large warm market, then you can survive the beginning. However, if you can't get good referrals, then you will not last much longer after your warm market dries up.

There is the chance to move up to management if you can survive two years. Had I found a position to moonlight in at the same time, I might have been able to last long enough and could have siphoned some of those extra dollars from that job for marketing or to buy good leads.

Mostly everyone at the office got along, which is great.

Cons

Although there is great training, often times that could hinder your availability to your client or prospect. If your prospect goes cold, then you just lost a sale.

Call nights could be brutal, expect to be at the office late and making calls to anyone and everyone you may have a phone number for. Again, this could take away from potential clients and prospects.

Financial services is a very clustered type industry, often times you will run into multiple companies in the same territory areas you working in. Often when I went to city chamber events, other reps not only from my own office would be there, but also from other companies. Sometimes half of the people at the chamber event would be insurance and financial services people.

From what I understood, I was one of the last to get into the program where the company pays a small weekly salary of $400 while studying for licensing (Series 6/63) and training - this was for 10 weeks. After that, there is a draw of $3600 you can pull from - that lasted about six weeks. Once your draw is done, and if you haven't gotten enough sales, you might be screwed.

Although some managers are great and trust worthy, others are not so much. Upper management may even make your life more difficult as it truly is a "What have you done for me lately" mentality.

Although Pru offers great products with a strong name attached, they are somewhat expensive. My warm market was made up of Blue Collars who just couldn't see spending that kind of money on the products I was able to offer; often times they ended up going with a lower cost alternative and I couldn't blame them as sometimes it was half the cost for a similar product like a 30 Year Term Policy.

Advice to Senior Management

Prudential is a great name, but there needs to be more financial support in terms of marketing and creating leads for new agents trying to set themselves up. A bigger diversity of affordable products should be made if you want to cross over into the Latino market, as they are typically a Blue Collar group that don't have much disposable income.

Call nights might okay, but just not as often, especially combined with continuing training on the same day; it can be overkill by the time call night is supposed to start.

A larger draw might benefit employees, or a small stipend that lasts longer where the employee eventually is weaned off. This is about supporting an associate, many are fresh out of college kids who don't know many wealthy people, be realistic on expectations.

Pros

The community of people are very supportive. You are surrounded by intelligent people who are all extremely qulaified and professional.

Cons

It was a lot of admin work. I didnt feel like I learned that much about the industry but rather felt like I was doing the work that they needed to have done.