The Vanguard Group Reviews

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – -401k match is ok/ but 4% match and 10% match of your pay a quarter isn't much when your pay is squat.
-Starting point for those that come in unlicensed

Cons – -This is not a "real" investment company/ investment job. It is a phone job. You're a live body making sure their are not too many people waiting. The phrase "Wal-Mart of investing" is thrown around a lot concerning Vanguard, and it's true. They will pay you peanuts compared to the competition, but when trying to leave the competition either hires you out of pity because they started their too or you get a "Vanguard, that's nice" since the name holds no weight with the "big boys"
-Every job is the same with a different title. It doesn't matter if your a client relationship associate, dual hat, or in a specialized division.. you're there to get the client off the line as fast as possible.
-Shortened lunches are now the norm. No one wants your "free" lunches when you supply them from the Sodexo cafeteria.
-Employees are treated as cattle, unless you're ethnicity is not-white or you're a girl. If you're both you'll be a shining star.

Advice to Senior Management – Increase your pay... If every review out there talks about your pay then don't you think your pay needs to be increased? Also don't publish reports company wide that have "planned attrition numbers" for your division in them.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Job security, PTO, work/life balance to a point

Cons – Low compensation, passive aggressive management, way too politically correct to the point of making everything awkward, management takes all suggestions and criticism and being negative, other employees lie or throw you under the bus to get ahead, the long-term employees are mindless, diversity is above who is best for the job, every year there is more expected of you but compensation decreases. I can go on forever about their stack ranking and how employees are rated at year end but there is not enough room to type everything.

Advice to Senior Management – See the cons

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Site location, licensing for new employees, they cater to diversity, its a job, physical work environment is above average compared to BofA, Merrill Lynch, Schwab, and others in the area.

Cons – Don't be fooled by HR's only selling points of great benefits and a great place to grow a career. The benefits are on par with fortune 500 companies benefits. Unfortunately for every good supervisor or manager there seems to be one or two bad applies (other supervisors/managers). A lot of employees find their boss uses them at their expense to look good rather than being a coach, mentor, or leader. Basically doing the right thing can be very harmful to a lot of people's career at VG. Management does not practice what they preach. If you say ANYTHING possibly construed as negative it will be used against you, guaranteed. Many employees will throw others under the bus to get ahead or just flat out lie. Good people are leaving the company and I will be joining them before or in June I hope.

Advice to Senior Management – Creating burn out jobs to turn employees every two years is not ethical. Project one is a joke - Didn't you all learn anything about why assembly lines were created? Charles Schwab is not VG.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – No layoffs ever
Work/life balance
Cheap medical benefits
Low cost investments makes it easy to do business with clients

Cons – Low compensation
No included perks
Hard to move up past the first promotion to middle management (little opportunity)
Micromanagement in phone roles
Passive aggressive management

Advice to Senior Management – Show employees you care about keeping them with more competitive comp. More appreciation for people on the front lines (phones) other than free lunch once every month or two

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Vacation
Attractive Women
Clean Bathrooms
Free Food
Clients invest here because it is free, so the clientele is brain dead and believe anything.

Cons – Painful Call center work
Incompetent managers
Uber Liberal Politically Correct
Stone Age Software
Long Term Employees are mindless
This is simply a call center despite managements disguise of the position as sales. Your calls are monitorred and you must use their scripts and catchy phrases to lure inbound callers into investing for free. Clients get what they pay for - no advice and poor service. Sales approach was dreamed up by managers that never sold a newspaper. Just not a long term place for investment professionals with any experience. You will regret working here.

Advice to Senior Management – Charge your clients a reasonable fee so you can hire and retain competent employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – Company hires employees without licensing. Clean work environment. Easy commute to work if you live in North Scottsdale. Places to walk for lunch across the street. Gym and apartment in area.

Cons – Horribly depressing call center starting the week after you get out of training. I can barely breath at work. Supervisors don't care about you, just your performance and what makes them look good. The environment has burned out most of my friends and everyone wants to find a better job. I'm being payed to work the job of two people or threatened with disciplinary action. I met expectations last year and received a 2% raise since I was told that is the norm across the board.

Advice to Senior Management – Try working my job on the phone for a week and you'd cry.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Clean workplace
Good location (Scottsdale)
VU university is good for the most part (classes)
Food (Galley) is OK for company food
Bathrooms are clean (usually).

Cons – -Terribly mismanaged company after the old CEO left.
-Diversity of sex, ethnicity take precedence over diligence in hiring decisions in all departments.
-Highly attractive girls (not woman) get catered to in most departments by the male supervisors/managers that never had a date in college (empty-less suits as one Flagship client said).
-No upward mobility unless you have a second face and drink kool-aid every meal and brainwash yourself.
-Strong democratic/liberal political presence in all department management.
-Goodluck paying your cost of living and having anything left over.
-Maybe you can retire by the time your 90 even with Vanguards own calculations.
-Anonymous surveys about employee satisfaction on a monitored PC is crazy.

Advice to Senior Management – To senior staff: This company is turning into the USPS. Good job (money talks) brainwashing everyone that you all live hand to mouth like everyone else in the company... I know people would be shocked if you disclosed your pay. Eventually though they're going to figure out actions speak louder than words and your just using your people as disposable assets, not investments.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Excellent retirement benefits, healthcare, time off, etc...

Cons – Call center environment 24/7; they try to glamorize roles, "can't put lipstick on a pig".

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your employees like humans.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Steady Paycheck and a you can get a large amount of PTO after a few years.

Cons – The pay is horrible. This year they were handing out alot of Further Development Needed ratings at year-end like it was candy. Even though most of the people met their department expectations. And a FDN rating means no bonus. In my opinion this is their way to get people to quit so they can continue to brag that they don't lay people off. Every year they expect more and more out if it's crew but the compensation decreases. For example health care, merit increases, bonuses. This play just breeds massive depression. They lie to you from day one of your employment. Do not work here. After 5 years you will realize you have wasted your time.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay people for the work they do. You are losing tenured people whom do their job very well just to save a few bucks in regards to health care, salary, year end bonus etc.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group for more than 10 years

Pros – Outstanding benefits and lot of vacation time.
Good work/life balance.

Cons – Very new, inexperienced management team. Vanguard has a lot of seasoned talent they seem to be managing out so they can promote college graduates with no industry experience. The VDAP program allows them to promote people with no industry experience, call center, people skills or leadership/management skills. The company shows no loyalty to tenured crew and will easily find way to get rid of them. Don't believe the "job security" saying.

TLs are not available for crew to assist with client issues, crew does not receive the support they use to receive from their department management team. Morale seem to be at an all time low and upper management doesn't seem to care about crew like they use too. The bar is consistently being raised so crew can not meet goals. They say they pay for performance but everyone gets about the same raise (3% or less). If your exempt and your manager likes you, you can get a great year-end bonus. If your manager doesn't like you, forget your bonus no matter how hard you work.

Reviews are very subjective and often times people have been surprised by their year-end ratings which should never happen if you have good management. Everyone seems out for themselves vs. working as a team like it use to be. Based on what I have seen and experienced I would not recommend this company to anyone.

Advice to Senior Management – Start looking closely at your Sr. Managers/Middle Managers. Cleaning house could do wonders for the morale of the company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company