Vanguard Investments Reviews

Pros

Low stress, career development, lots and lots of opportunity to learn and increase your investment knowledge. Nice people. Fun people.

Cons

Career development is in the employee hands. You must be a self-starter at Vanguard to advance. The pay is low when you're on the phones; but improves when you advance off the phones and into higher level investment positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Get to know your crew.

Pros

Vanguard offers great benefits. These include 401k, profit-sharing plan, medical benefits & generous time off. They also offer decent training for people who have no industry experience.

Cons

I compare Vanguard to working for the government. Given the huge number of workforce, advancement is slow and beareucratic. The pay is mediocre to start, rises to mediocre mid-career, and tops out mediocrely.

Advice to Senior Management

They should seek to allow individuals to advance more quickly based on personal performance and not place long time-in-job requirements across the board.

Pros

Great Benefits, average salary and job stability

Cons

No advancement opportunities unless you work at corporate

Advice to Senior Management

Offer more advancement opportuities

Pros

Great environment
Great training
Great job security
Good place for a college student
Great resume builder
Really good retirement benefits

Cons

Not a lot of opportunity to move up in the ranks
Duties of the job become repetitive and boring if you need variety

Advice to Senior Management

Make more opportunities for promotions and pay increases. Management shouldn't be so hard on they're workers. Entry level position should be at a higher salary

Pros

Steady. You don't need much of your brain to do a good job.

Cons

Very political. Some of the middle level managers are basically idiots. They don't treat their direct reports with any respect.

Advice to Senior Management

Start laying off the incompetents.

Pros

Good benefits, otherwise this is not a place to make a career unless you are tip-top management. The best people go elsewhere

Cons

lousy compensation, a..-kissing helps promotions, no room for creativity, this is not a company for those who want to advance based on skill

Advice to Senior Management

Take away the Kool-Aid and get out of your offices to talk to the people on the front lines

Pros

Fair treatment of employees, reasonable policies, strong commitment to ethics, commitment to development and training, keeping costs low helps save jobs during times of economic disturbance, commitment to diversity, decent benefits, very friendly people (almost too nice!), free graduate degrees, team-oriented environment, complaints are taken seriously, strong customer focus, doing the right thing is always rewarded, I am always proud to say I work at Vanguard

Cons

The pay isn't spectacular. If money is your primary motivator, it might not be the place for you. Vanguard is a "pay for performance" company, so there are good raises and bonuses to be had, but you'll have to work your tail off for them. If you're OK with a decent salary, challenging work, opportunities for unlimited lateral transfers, a free MBA/CFP/CFA, and a comfortable, friendly work environment, and you're willing to trade that for the fast-track to promotions and six figures, it's a great place.
The "nice" culture does let lower performers slide for a while, and that gets annoying. There is a lot of bureaucracy and levels of approval for seemingly trivial things. Dress code is outdated.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, management is doing a great job. Trust your employees and managers more. We know what we're doing, and we work here because we're ethical. If we were greedy crooks, we'd work somewhere else that paid more.

Pros

Vanguard has a unique culture of loyalty to clients and employees. It is a very conservative company and well run. Vanguard is known for low expenses to help their clients keep more of their investment returns. I can attest to that philosophy - We truly watch every penny. In fact, you will never see an employee of our firm riding first class on an airplane. It is always coach for us. By being conservative, I don't think we ever laid off any of our employees. Despite the turmoil on Wall Street, we were not really impacted except for some belt-tightening.

Cons

Vanguard offers stable employment, but you will definately not get rich working there. No huge bonuses and our salaries are somewhat below industry average. While the benefits are still reasonable, they are not as good as they used to be.

Advice to Senior Management

Stay true to the loyalty of your clients and employees.

Pros

Opportunity to move around company. Decent benefits. Onsite conveniences. Company has never laid off. Keeps investors in mind all the time.

Cons

Compensation program changed this year so that next year we'll potentially earn less. Long time employees not recognized the same for years of service. College new hires arriving at a very high salary compared to long times. Boys club.

Advice to Senior Management

Assess employees on all skills, not just technical. Rudeness abounds in employee to employee contact - yet these crew are recognized as more effective although they lack half the skills as others. The ability of higher ups to communicate and treat crew fairly is a huge opportunity area. Your employees are not leaving to pursue school. They're leaving for other jobs.

Pros

Great work-life balance, employees treated with respect, outstanding benefit packages available to employees. Overall, a great place to work if you want to live a decent life and have a family.

Cons

The money that could be made at a financial firm in NY is just not the same. This is a company for people that are satisfied with a slightly above-average lifestyle, nothing more than that.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, keep doing what they are doing as managers. Management here cares very much about the people that they have in their departments, and are always willing to help accommodate an employee's needs.