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Vanguard Reviews
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Full-timePart-timeApprove of CEO
William McNabb
987 Ratings
Pros
Work life balance, excellent benefits (in 303 reviews)
Vanguard is a great company to work for and they offer great benefits (in 198 reviews)
Cons
Also there is a high turnover rate because it is more of a call center position once you get through training (in 130 reviews)
Pay is lower then the average but it is a trade off for the work life/balance (in 47 reviews)
- Featured Review
Helpful (24)
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"Purpose driven company"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Vanguard full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
A virtuous mission backed by a truly unique structure, significant investment in employee training and continuing education, best-in-class retirement and benefits package, generous time off and work-life balance, collaborative relationship-based culture, lots of rotational and promotional opportunities for top performers, improving at weeding out low performers and cultural cancers
Cons
Compensation could be greater, culture can be too nice and conflict averse, people can rise/fall based on a few or old impressions with influential people
Advice to Management
Figure out a way to better engage middle management and longer tenured employees.
Vanguard 2016-10-05 16:44 PDT Helpful (1)
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"Select Services Representative"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsApproves of CEOI worked at Vanguard full-time
Pros
Great Benefits - PTO, Health Care, option for Overtime (Time and a half)
Get to help educate people on their investments, and help them make better investment decisions
Great Stepping stool into the Investment Industry. Great experience with investments. I see this as a Great Stepping Stool job right out of college.Cons
Call Center - They are often understaffed and extremely busy. Half of the year there is a constant que for clients which often got out of control (1 hour or more)
Very difficult to move up in the company. I've seen many extremely qualified employees denied positions multiple times to the point where they are forced to look elsewhere for work because of how difficult it can be to move up.Advice to Management
Focus more on hiring within Vanguard, than hiring outside Vanguard. Many dedicated Vanguard employees, who are extremely qualified, have left because of the difficulty of moving up.
GET RID OF STAR STORIES as the entire basis of your interview process. Utilize more of your resources to determine the quality of your hiring candidates - current managers, listening to phone calls. You have so many resources that can help you see the qualifications of those you are interviewing. Instead you rely heavily on their ability to tell a story, rather than perform their job.Vanguard 2017-08-19 07:19 PDTHelpful (5)
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"Retail & FFS"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookDisapproves of CEOI have been working at Vanguard full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
Work life balance in retail, opportunities to move between groups, company will pay for CFA, CFP, 7, 63, 24 etc., PTO, 401k matching. Retail - walk out the door at 37.5 hours and get a daily lunch
FFS- opportunity to take control of your team and role and make changes very quickly. Infinite project opportunities. Major exposure to the investment side without the same background requirements as many other big institutions. FFS is mostly hourly so the OT pays off.
Major opportunity for promotion in FFS as all teams are inter-connected. Easy to be noticed for hard work. TIJ waiver is not unheard of.Cons
Retail - you really are at the whim of your manager. Your year end merit raises are based on 'calibrations,' which are the mgmt teams basically fighting it out amongst each other to get raises for their crew. You're really out of luck if you have a cruddy mgr there. Additionally you are ranked each year (Distinguished, fully successfully, on track, further development needed). They have to give someone an FDN each year. If you are that someone, you can basically say goodbye to ever elevating your career at Vanguard.
Change is slow and requires 15 supervisors and 12 meetings. Crew are not able to run with ideas for change- everything is taken over by mgmt team. Projects have to be "given" to crew so very hard to obtain project experience.
FFS is its own special beast. FFS is a group of highly analytical hyper engaged crew who really care about the work they do. FFS crew cannot leave until the work is done, so nobody is a stranger to 10+ hour days with breaks only to sprint to the restroom and back. Lunch is an uncommon (if not unheard of) luxury. The daily life of an analyst on most teams is filled with intra-day deliverables that result in high stress environments for hours on end. It is not for the weak minded.
I work easily 5x as hard as I did in retail but we get dirt merit raises. Fully successful sat in the 2-3% range last year in FFS and it went over 5% in Flagship.
FFS has a huge VADP problem. As the crew are highly driven, knowledgeable,and analytical, there is intense frustration regarding the continuous hiring of 22y.o. VADP grads with zero finance or investments background & no work or leadership experience. FFS analysts have to be independent and self driven, and VADP mgrs really just get in the way of work. Crew spend more time teaching their mgmt and coaching their bosses through issues than should be acceptable considering everyone's already working 50 hour weeks. Promote within!Advice to Management
Stop overpaying Advice and Flagship all the time. Clients come for the low cost funds- pay your hard working FFS crew! There wouldn't be as many millionaires flying into VG if FFS crew didn't do their jobs so well and work so hard.
Eliminate VADP in FFS all together. We work too hard to have to baby our supervisors.Vanguard 2017-08-05 22:38 PDTHelpful (1)
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"Great Company"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Vanguard full-time (More than 8 years)
Pros
Investment in continuous personal and professional development
Leadership philosophy steeped in putting crew and clients first
Mission you can believe in
Work/Life BalanceCons
Can be overly collaborative
Formality and top down consensus driven decision making at times stifles creativity and forward thinkingAdvice to Management
Focus less on requiring presentations, 1-pagers, and the need to overly communicate up and across...delegate decision making and true ownership/accountability closer to the front lines
Vanguard 2017-08-12 10:01 PDT![Vanguard Logo]()
"Fixed Income Trader"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at Vanguard (More than 3 years)
Pros
Great work life balance
Great BenefitsCons
Pay is below average for similar roles
Vanguard 2017-08-15 13:59 PDT![Vanguard Logo]()
"Client Relationship Specialist"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at Vanguard full-time
Pros
Good benefits, decent pay, decent training
Cons
if you don't pass the test you get fired. the training wasn't in depth and some of the trainers just read out of the book.
Vanguard 2017-08-14 10:32 PDT![Vanguard Logo]()
"Honorable"
StarStarStarStarStarRecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Vanguard full-time
Pros
- Full benefits package
- Competitive comp
- Amazing cultureCons
- Slow to make decisions
- Behind on technologyVanguard 2017-08-13 10:19 PDT![Vanguard Logo]()
"Good opportunity"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Vanguard full-time (Less than a year)
Pros
Excellent amenities, ethical, lack of corporate profit pressures
Cons
Limited time to pass necessary exams, higher healthcare costs compared to industry
Vanguard 2017-08-08 02:25 PDTHelpful (2)
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"Financial advisor"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Vanguard full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
Great benefits, ethical and honest "client first" culture is real. Recent effort to make the salaries more competitive with the industry standard. Company sponsors and supports professional development and designations.
Cons
Low base salary for advisors. Rumblings in the department include concerns that it's becoming too much like a college frat or lacrosse team, a boys club environment, which is not typical of the culture at Vanguard.
Advice to Management
There's going to continue to be an outflow of talent (particularly women and minorities) if the leadership in advice doesn't investigate and nip potential problems in the bud.
Vanguard 2017-08-02 20:45 PDT![Vanguard Logo]()
"ICS Investment Specialist"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
I worked at Vanguard full-time
Pros
Great work environment; motto "Taking a stand for ALL investors" and always keeps the customer in mind with low expense ratios; sponsor you to take the Series 7 and 63; incredible benefit programs
Cons
Low expense ratios for customers mean lower salaries for employees
Vanguard 2017-08-04 18:26 PDT
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