Vanguard Reviews

Pros

Spent 16 yrs at Vanguard. Stressful but steady employment. Allowed me to save for my retirement.

Cons

Mgmt could be more proactive.

Pros

“Worklife” balance Everyone is nice and relaxed. No real pressure

Cons

If you are not in a college hire program like TLP and you take a dev job directly after college, your career will definitely suffer. I was hired directly as a developer after college, and was put on teams that didn’t really do any “real” work or have interesting projects. Meanwhile, friends that were hired on the same year and were in the TLP program were promoted quickly to senior. Your work will be meaningless. Few teams are doing complex work, and a roll of the dice to get on a good one. In my department, most managers didn’t know what was going on with most teams. Lack of accountability is insane. Most are coasting. Good if you are starting a family and maybe settling down. Really, really bad if you want to work hard and progress to achieve your fullest potential. I felt like I wasted years of my early career working hard for a company and managers that couldn’t give a crap. I’m progressing at a better company with the same amount of effort with more pay and recognition. Also, heard from more tenured employees that leadership, compensation, and direction have declined since Bogle left Vanguard, and has accelerated downhill post 2000s era, and I would concur. Early career devs beware. Plan to leave 1.5-2 years if you aren’t a senior by then.

Pros

Many first-time managers with great enthusiasm gain their people leadership credentials here. You learn the essentials of HR policies, interviewing, hiring, feedback, project management and are able to build networks across the company.

Cons

Very inefficient operations and long hours. Everything is ad hoc. The turnover is incredibly high because the goal is to move on. Many have come with the skill to work the visibility system that gets you recognized for opportunities and the best opportunities are for the chosen. Those people move on in less than a year. Sadly, youth is treasured over experience where more discernment over projects would avoid wasted time. The result of this combination is long hours to impress people, ideas that can only be implemented with the manual oversight of the person who implemented who will be gone within six months.

Pros

Going through licensing. The benefits and the hybrid schedule

Cons

Some TLs have favorites and are racist. I’ve had a TL who hasn’t tried to assist with anything work related and will ignore me then complain about numbers. It’s all about numbers, nothing else. As far as work from home options, Vanguard leaves it up to TL and he only allows certain people to work from home. Even when my daughter was sick, he wouldn’t allow me to work from home. I could either take PTO or if I didn’t want to use pto, I could do unpaid and then get points against me. Benefits (some) offered when I first started has stopped. They make it seem like they care about clients and employees but in all actuality, they only care about numbers. They put my colleague on a 6 month involuntary short term disability leave for not lying to a client about their money. Now they can’t get any kind of pay because VG “technically” is paying them but not directly. It’s going into a 401k. They can’t get unemployment nor get another job. It sounds illegal.

Pros

401K & other benefits are great, some of the people are nice to work with

Cons

1) This is very much so a company where people are encouraged to and do drink the kool-aid. Pride in your company is one thing, but some people make Vanguard their personality, and this is a little offputting. 2) "Vanguard Lore" - The guy that got out of the phones and become head of X; That there are limitless opportunities. That they care about their people. 3) Obsession with continuous improvement means managers and senior managers are encouraged to initiation CIPs which amount to endless amounts of meetings whose intention is to get blood from a stone, i.e., improving very trivial things which then are forgotten about immediately 4) Calibration and forced ranking. Everyone hates it but nobody will do anything about it. Does not improve morale. 5) It is not enough that you do your job well. See above. To simply do your job well means you will be ranked low during calibrations. 6) RTO - Rumors of increased scrutiny abound. We are ultimately coming to the office to then join Microsoft Teams meetings.

Pros

The hybrid schedule is nice and if you live close to the office not many pros.

Cons

This position is actually just a call center which was not what the recruiter led me to believe. The management only cares for you to pass your Series 6, SIE, and Series 63 within two attempts of the exam. If you fail any of them on your second attempt, they will fire you right away. I was informed I was no longer employed over a 3 sentence teams message from my manager.

Pros

The culture and benefits at Vanguard were great. I made friends, formed great relationships with management, and initially this job was a great experience. They will pay for you to get licensed, and in the past have even had incentive bonuses for overtime.

Cons

Really wanted to give 3 or 4 stars, but there's just too many issues to justify such a rating. The most glaring con was that the technology was downright TERRIBLE, to the point where it's embarrassing. Oftentimes, there would not even be a solution for what seemed like the simplest issues, and it was not uncommon for online forms and processes to outright fail for clients for no apparent reason, causing frustration and dragging calls on far longer than they should've been. Clients constantly called in elevated, and wait times were frequently very long, leading to further elevation. Morale constantly tanked because of this. They pay substantially less than industry standards, and despite what they may tell you it is not made up for by bonuses and benefits. Any raise through promotion feels incredibly meager and only encourages one to look at other firms in the industry. Don't use too much PTO if you plan to terminate with them or they will pursue you for the monetary amount.

Pros

Management was ok in regards to being friendly Pay Remote Benefits Teammates

Cons

Not second chances No termination warnings No coaching to show you what to do to fix your mistake Will not give you an explanation was to why or when you're able to get rehired again Not enough training time.

Pros

Having Holidays and weekends off.

Cons

No compromise. Monthly meetings with supervisor. Forced team contributions rather than natural contributions. Hard to grow within the company.

Pros

best TL in investment primary, the pride and envy of a lot of Vanguard registered representative who work at Vanguard Brokerage operation paid licensing trainings for all 3 exams HSA benefits super nice co workers- i love my vanguard friends for a lot of people like me this is the only entry into the industry - we have to put out for 1 to 2 years and leave for better firms. sad but also true.

Cons

I would have stayed if it is not for the RTO requirement. I got the best TL in the business but i still rate this place as 1 star because they are cheap. Their cheapness is hurting them when it comes to talent retention. their computer is 200 years old and was created during the stone age. a lot of the time you gonna have to spend time trying to fix tech issue that is not your skill set. clients are rude as heck. also super old and cant use a computer so thats why they call in. if you leaving earlier than 1 year you have to give back your hired on bonus and pay them for their licensing classes. make sure you save your initial contract agreement because other firms will ask you to produce the same documents to tell you that if you leaving vanguard they will not pay your licenses fees and bonus- you will have to do it. Scottsdale location is super expensive to move to if you just started out. most people room shares with their own co workers at vanguard which is just insane. your salary is too low to actually afford rent and have a comfortable life doing this job. make sure you take a lot of office supplies before you leave because you gonna need to sell them to pay back any unexpected fees vanguard HR deems that you owe them.