SEI Investments Reviews in Philadelphia, PA Area

Pros

Good company to get your feet wet in finance. Interesting work environment and nice campus.

Cons

Low pay, too many promises and no delivery.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen more to your employees. Compensate employees on sales rather than backing into comp target pool.

Pros

Great industry experience, good company to start your career. Nice open office floorplan. Many young, recent grads (in the IMS)

Cons

Low pay when compared to the rest of the industry ($35K). During the interview and job offer, HR does a lot of talking about promotions and lateral movements across departments, but in the last 3 years, i havent seen much of that at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Analysts are ready to leave as soon as they get an opportunity. It is very hard to pay student loans, rent, etc. on $35K. PROMOTE YOUR VALUED EMPLOYEES!

Pros

Opportunity! Once you get through the selection process (and you need to show that you are self motivated, have clearly applicable competencies, are client focused, and willing to work harder than you think you can) the opportunities are endless. I have moved from one career to another, based on the SEI's trust in my demonstrated skills and driven by my own aspirations. I have seen it a million times - work hard, do a really good job, position yourself as the consumate professional and work the network and your next job is your choice.

Cons

You are expected to drive your own development, so if you are afraid to research ways to improve your performance and too shy to ask for support - forget about it. You will go stale and become obsolete. Should the manager help in this pursuit ? Yes, and they are getting the training they need to be more involved. But right now, don't go to SEI if you expect to be spoon fed everyday.

Advice to Senior Management

Train your managers, create ways to identify talent early and offer those folks advanced opportunities, be more careful in selecting new hires, especially the young entry level ones, and provide more resources around HR and Development like you do with Business Management.

Pros

The campus and benefits are top-notch. Green initiatives and plenty of opportunities to volunteer as well...a good place to end a career rather than start...

Cons

Advancement is all about who you know not what you know. The training can be weak depending on what area you work in. Senior managment is talented, while middle management are mostly a bunch of country bumpkins. Make no mistake, it's an old boy's club.

Advice to Senior Management

Scrap the current training programs and start from scratch. Offering better pay for entry-level folks will also attract more talent - this will solve your weak middle management problem.

Pros

young company, good place to launch a career, must put in the time to really make it there but great place overall

Cons

low pay to start really places you in a hole to begin with, does not offer the best training opportunities or continual education to allow you to advance

Advice to Senior Management

management to competant and run the company well. they really know what they are doing and where the company to going

Pros

Open Environment
Approachable Management
Collegial Workplace
Employee Services Offered

Cons

People don't know how to play nice in the sandbox.
Lacks Structure

Advice to Senior Management

If you believe you are communicating enough to employees, start overcommunicating. EPS should be more present and communicating with their units. Management needs to get out there and do the same. The employees are hearing the cry to row harder, but would help knowing we're all going in the same direction.

Pros

Easy work, not a bad place to learn some operations. Don't stay long.

Cons

Not a "real" money manager, SEI outsources these roles. If you want to learn money management go to a small money manager or NY. Their technology is all outsourced to India (NIIT) so the opportunity for technology advancement is low, only furthers the question if SEI GWP platform is a real product for the market. Very top heavy management, in the money manager outsourcing unit the leader acts busy without doing any real work and thought leadership is a big farce. After loosing many clients from large banks we will probably get out of the business.

Advice to Senior Management

Shed top and middle management PLEASE. Get outside talent. Sell the company so I can cash my stock.

Pros

open work environment
not so micromanaged
casual dress

Cons

the ART is horrible. all of it.
There is no room for advancement unless your already advanced.
The more you do the more your taken advantage of, no rewards for hard work
The less you do, the more your praised and nominated for awards.
You get promoted if you are "friends" with management - even without qualifications
Don't ask don't tell is the mission statement
Can't talk to HR unless you want to be labeled a troubled case.
CEO doesn't communicate to the company, no broadcast messages, updates, no involvement
Employees are not valued within the company

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees, give them more opportunities. Don't shrug them off and pretend to listen. Stop promoting your friends and promote the people that actually do the work. Pay attention to ALL of your employees, not just the ones that follow you around and get your coffee.
Offer more team building, interaction within the company.
Be more flexible with vacation time, offer more options. Spend some time/money on your employees, show their value to you. Stop creating "projects" and building new policies.
If it isn't broken, don't try to fix it. Change isn't always the best thing!! Some things work better the old way.
Put some money into technology. Prehistoric operating systems are not efficient or conducive to high volume processing areas.
Stop OUTSOURCING.

Pros

SEI is a very open and positive culture in which to work. The company is growing despite the economic conditions.

Cons

SEI does not offer an extremely competitive salary but when considering the overall benefits and environment, it is a good place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

The biggest issue is loss of talent to other high paying firms and this could clearly be mitigated by providing a better salary.

Pros

SEI is not for everyone. But, if you want to control your own career and prefer not to be told “what’s next”, are willing to step up, put in the work and the hours, network internally like mad, and take personal responsibility for your clients, you can pretty much design your own career at SEI.

Cons

If you are more comfortable with a nice clear, vertical career path with clear requirements for success, try Vanguard. But understand that your career will be predictable and perhaps not open-ended.

If you want opportunities and are willing to work hard, dedicate yourself to your clients, and be open to change and sometimes chaos, come to SEI.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more feedback, does not have to be formal feedback, just more in order to help people align their performance with your expectations and navigate through this flat organization.