Pros
Company reputation Steady work and pay Decent benefits Ability to have a balanced life The customers Training Convenient locations Learning how the financial industry works Good job if you have a good FA
Cons
Your satisfaction is completely linked to the Financial Advsior you work with- my FA did not want to always go by the rules established by the company so I was hung out on a limb sometimes by trying to do what he wanted even though it was against company policy. He told me early on that "if I don't like someone I know how to get rid of them". He turned me in for non-compliance on something that he ordered me to do and he denied it. I transferred into this office last year after 3 years in another office that was great. In this one I worked to do things as I had before in but this new FA wanted to micromanage everything I did. He would ask me to do something and I would do it according to company procedures and he would get mad at me for not doing it the way he wanted even though he never told me what that was. I started asking him how he wanted things done as they came up and his response was that I should know how he wants things done. He also wanted me to make sales calls and go out in the community on my own time to bring in business which is completely against company policy. He put me on probation without telling me why and then when we jointly spoke to someone in HR he listed things I didn't know about and told the HR person that he had called me in to talk to me about each one before he put me on probation- which was an outright lie. I learned that telling lies was what he did best. And there was never any written follow up on any of those so called meetings. I was never given the opportunity to speak to anyone in HR about my side without him also on the phone. Meanwhile he was opening accounts in the names of relatives with his money and then closing them once he got the commission. And he was executing short sells as well as day trading in his office. He refused to offer the company's banking products and put down some of the company's preferred funds to potential clients. And he was trashing my name all over the place. The BOA has no recourse and the FA is always given the benefit because they supposedly bring in the money which is all Edward Jones cares about. The company works hard on its image as a great place to work but it's all a facade without substance. The FA's need management training as much as they need financial training. This FA always bragged about what a great manager he was but he was one of the worst that I have ever seen or heard of. All he cared about was himself and money. And I guess that is the way that Edward Jones wants it.