client associate

customer service representative

software engineer

financial advisor

application developer

Vanguard

A corporate culture of mentoring, volunteerism, charity, and responsibility. A good work/life balance, flexible time, telecommuting, reasonable compensation, and advancement opportunities are all available, but are highly dependent on the department and/or manager. My time at Vanguard spanned all three of the CEOs. The company has changed (and continues to change) from an idealistic, iconoclastic company to a much more mainstream, growth-oriented American corporation. You will succeed and be very happy at Vanguard if: You buy into the culture, you’re politically adept (and politically correct), you get satisfaction from tooting your own horn, and you believe that process trumps product. Cross-departmental / cross-divisional projects often felt adversarial. Lots of little fiefdoms protecting turf rather than collaborating for the good of the company as a whole. Very bureaucratic. Management’s general avoidance about taking ownership and actually addressing the issues. Best to push things onto subordinates (the lower the better) without clear expectations or the appropriate resources and maintain plausible deniability. Little evidence of a cohesive (company-wide), long-term strategy or vision. A strong focus on fixing the small immediate problem in a way that frequently results in more work / re-work later as well as squandered resources. The recent changes to compensation and profit-sharing reward job performance over tenure. While these changes may have been necessary, they have had a negative impact on morale. There are a fair number of employees that are netting less annually than they did 5 or 6 years ago. All incentives to stay with the company for any length of time have been removed. Performance standards and expectations can vary substantially from one manager to another, even within the same department. Some of the methods used by Vanguard to maintain the “never had layoffs” stability are: 1) Creating attrition by using a series of poorly-defined, impracticable negative ratings on annual reviews that will negate any possibility of a bonus, merit increase or finding another job within the company. 2) Changing the description and/or expectations for an employee’s current job or rank resulting in those same poorly-defined, impracticable negative ratings. 3) Forcing employees to re-apply for their own jobs and then rejecting them. Vanguard touts its diversity and employee feedback efforts. My experience was that diversity meant “don’t offend anyone” rather than recognizing and accepting differences. Year after year employee feedback was solicited, responses were provided, teams were created, projects were launched, and, after a few months, everything faded away with no substantive changes.

Vanguard is a great place to get your licenses for free, but besides that this job is utterly miserable. Incompetent managers, extreme micromanagement, you will be expected to be on the phone 100 percent of your day besides lunch and are tracked by the second. One break and you will hear about it, often in front of your whole team. They literally do not care about the quality of your actual work, only that you hit your metrics and speak to as many clients as possible to compensate for severe understaffing. You hang up the phone and it immediately starts ringing again before you can even take a breath. The calls are relentless, and most of the time the client on the line has been on hold for an hour prior, so obviously they will be angry and take it out on you. There’s nothing you can do about it, you have to sit back and take it while these clueless “investors” scream and complain about things that are out of your control. This is all day, every day, for 8 hours. Total mindless and soul crushing work that will leave you feeling burned out quick. My hours are 9:30 - 6:30 which has negatively affected my mental health to the point where the only thing I feel throughout my day is sheer hopelessness. They drag out the duration of the phone roles and delay the promotion process as long as they can, using “subdivisions” disguised as actual promotions to give their staff a glimmer of optimism. Managers are corporate robots that regurgitate useless “support” and advice that has literally no worth or effect on their team members. My team is laughably unmotivated, and why shouldn’t we be? I have a finance degree and took this job out of college expecting to be able to use the skills I accumulated, and I have never felt so tricked and taken for a ride by the job description. This is not a finance job, this is a call center/customer service job that requires no skill besides anger control in order to deal with clueless elderly clients asking how to use a computer. Any actual finance talk will be minimal. There is little to no chance you advance to an analyst/back office role through this path.  Do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time. Avoid this job. Everybody is miserable and clueless, and you will hate every day more than the one before until you go fully insane. There’s a reason why they hire anybody with a pulse for this role - they need bodies on the phones and those with any actual aspirations in the finance field leave within a year. If vanguard were smart they would outsource this entire position to some third world country like other institutions have done. 

typical day at work revolved around working a schedule where you would have time allocated throughout the day to work with clients as well as the other time would be to work with clerical and monetary transactions.

I learned a lot about IRAs, Trusts and Individual accounts as well as the rules and regulations for them. I also learned a lot about mutual funds, ETFs and various money market accounts, including Brokerage accounts too.

Management, is something that needed much help in this particular department, I feel that it was a cookie cutter approach used in my department and from an employee perspective who is managed, I think that good managers should use different managing styles for different people due to the fact that everyone isn't the same and various approaches should be used when working with your team.

Co-workers, it is a typical call center type of environment, but mostly due to the nature of the business we are in everyone is professional and most are easy to get along with and are a pleasure to come in contact everyday. Now on the other side of that coin there are a few sour ones that are constantly miserable and no matter what is said they are always on the opposite spectrum of everyone else, but it isn't enough to make the department terrible to work in.

Hardest part of my job, Salary, Salary Salary..Also it would make the employees a lot more engaged if our department was paid what the average industry is paid for what it is we do. Our department does the job of multiple departments and the firm wants our employees to know 10 to 15 different functions as well as work with clients and maintain a very high productivity rate, but the salary is below average for what is required and it is well known and very discouraging. Another issue would be just dealing with choices and decisions made for you day to day by individuals who have no clue about your job or how it works and just throwing monkey wrenches in your day very often. Also dealing with systems that are constantly freezing and making your job hectic as well as not being able to help clients efficiently when systems are acting up, spend some money on updating the systems at the firm instead of updating other things that have no bearing on helping the employees with their job.

Enjoyable part of my job, my job is a great starting point for anyone who comes into the firm, you get a lot of training and learn a lot for one department. After a year or 2 max, it is time to move on to other ventures at the firm, but the people are good and the company has a lot of great perks being employed there.

Investment leader, highly touted in the industry. Competitive interview process. Once you get in, great support in ongoing education, Series licensing, etc. Phone roles are a bit challenging, they throw you on with minimal training and it's really drinking from a firehose. Seems to be a divide forming as they are doing more external hiring to manage these client-facing roles than promoting from within.

Company has been focused on growth, and it's led to burnout across client facing roles. The responsibility levels that were delivered to us as "exceptional times" and to "grit our teeth through this rough patch" at the start of COVID have now turned into the normal service level, and people are noticing (and leaving). Management seems content with growing the company at the expense of current staff's workload and work-life balance. 

Technology is HORRIBLE, laughable in some regards. All of it. Internal trading systems, client communication systems, the Vanguard website, it's consistently crashing and creating a headache for clients, advisors, support staff, etc. It's become a running joke when the next thing will crash. Frustrating since it torpedoes your ability to perform work for the day, making tomorrow's work doubled, so on so on.

Pay is noticeably lacking (we all knew this), but the benefits that supposedly make up for it have slowly been dwindling as well. Recent cuts to the retirement medical benefits, HSA perks, etc. have not gone unnoticed. With that, the company got stiffed on the Partnership bonus (a midyear bonus announced based on how the company & investments do), in this 2021 year of record market performance and company growth. If you have a family to support, it's a fantastic value to their benefits package. If you don't, then outside the 401(k) match there isn't much there. 

Still, beyond all this, it's a fantastic place to start a career. The people are nice, culture is a bit more relaxed than other financial institutions, industry leader & fiduciary standing make you feel good about what you do. No commissions or quotas to hit (a positive or negative depending on your working preferences I guess). However, COVID has shown some true colors of management/higher ups, and that's where the 5 star rating I would've given it a few years ago will be scaled back. 



I worked at vanguard for just under 5 years. It was my first job out of college and I was excited to go work for a fund with a good ethical background of low cost mutual funds right out of school.

Pros: good health benefits, HSA, and 401k match(once vested, most people don’t get the 4% match until 1 yr of service and aren’t fully vested on the additional 10% employer contribution for 6 years). Great coworkers and people who generally want to do the right thing for the client.

Cons:
Really poor phone training and call routing practices. As the years went buy the phone brokers became more and more silo’d and had increased pressure from management  to lower call times, which was always at the expense of providing a poor experience to our clients. Unless you are an external higher, pay is non-negotiable. Standard merit increases each year don’t keep up with inflation. (Standard 3% for most employees, with someone doing an above and beyond job receiving a MAX of 5-7%). 
This leads to ultimately people having to “ grind the corporate ladder with typically a pay increase of 7% at each level for lower tier colleagues and up to 15% for specialists/managers. 

The funds as a whole are run by a competent group of portfolio managers but sometimes it feels like traders or research analysts are given roles to fill a “quota” instead of hiring the most competent employee for that job. 
After learning about how the funds are run in regards to how conservative they are on securities lending, utilizing total return swaps to match exposure, etc. I will always hold vanguard index funds. But I would never use them as a brokerage custodian as the customer service is absolutely atrocious in regards to competency of phone reps and clueless managers that only want to cherry pick stats to look good for their bosses. It’s supposed to be a key selling point that vanguard wasn’t outsourcing its call centers to places like India and Manila. But they don’t put enough time into training their reps in becoming subject matter experts and it REALLY shows when you call in to have something done other than a password change or a buy/sell order.

Vanguard is one of, if not the best place to start your financial career. They will hire you with no financial background or licensing and pay you to train and study for your Series 7 and 63 financial licenses. These are essential for virtually every role in the investment services space. That's the good part.

The bad part is that if you stay at Vanguard, you're getting sorely underpaid for the work you're doing relative to your peers at other firms. Vanguard pays no commissions - a flat salary (which typically sits 20%+ compared to the competition), along with a profit sharing plan and a year-end bonus (for exempt employees only). Almost all jobs within the firm are call center roles - Vanguard does not take in person client appointments in 95% of the roles. You will be taking 40-60 calls per day in an entry level role. While Vanguard does have a generous PTO offering, respectable 401k matching, and a solid insurance plan, senior management will lean on that as a justification for the lower base pay at every position within the firm. The only positions where employees are paid a strong salary are typically advisors that they hired externally from competing firms, where they had to put a strong offer on the table to overcome the lack of commissions. 

Vanguard also likes to generate the appearance that leaving the firm for better earnings will be disastrous, you'll have to work 90+ hours a week and do really unethical things, etc. While there are places in the industry like that, the reality is a lot of their chief competition offers virtually identical packages but with the incentive of a higher base salary and commission opportunities to be rewarded for your efforts.

If you're someone that likes to coast, put in a bare minimum effort, and collect a flat bi-weekly paycheck, then this could be a good job for you. For those that want to maximize the value of the work they're putting in and the licenses they've obtained, other firms offer a much more competitive pay structure without sacrificing much or any of your work/life balance. Vanguard is great for clients and entry level employees - beyond that it's typically best to begin looking elsewhere.

Vanguard is a decent company to work for, some challenges that may crop up, depending on the level in which you are applying for particularly for a rep newly entering into the financial space training may not be all that you thought it would be. I would advise supplemental financial industry training on your own free time. Licensing felt brutal even for me an employee with a masters degree. But it challenged me so I recommend this for all to increase your competency and self efficacy. Upper mobility for promotions also seems to not be that common. Once your placed in a department, your time in  job will reset and even if you receive a promotion, you still most likely have to stay in that position for another year until you can apply for another role unless that role does not require a time in job  timeframe. Hybrid schedule helps with some of the cons listed, but due to the lack of clear communication with reps on the phone, and the constant changes it could almost feel like you are always adjusting. Client relationship associate is essentially a call center for reps with series 7 and series 63 licenses. I am convinced that many employees skills are underutilized. For those with accommodation needs physical or invisible disabilities once hired connect with HR to advocate for yourself. I waited 3 months or 4 months to do so in fear of being fired  but I was not fired lol they worked with me so do it when you intuitively feel safe to. Despite Vanguard, being a decent place to work, I could not recommend it in good faith, if it was offered in a category with other FINRA member firms, then out of that selection, I would choose Vanguard, but I would not go out of my way to recommend this company.

I found Vanguard to be a bit of a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'.
It seemed like a reasonable place for someone my age. No pressure to get licensed if you have no interest (That has changed). Great benefits and supposedly, pay raises.

To start with the positive: If you can remain on the payroll there is a bonus earned in the calendar year, but not paid until June of the following year. However, although you may have 'earned' the bonus if you are not on payroll on June 30th of the following year, you don't get the bonus. 
The health insurance and other benefits are good.
The 401(K) is generous, BUT the vesting period is 6-years. 

Good luck advancing anywhere if you don't get your license. It is very difficult to advance at Vanguard if you don't. It is also very difficult to get an interview for posted positions if your numbers aren't perfect. There is a sense of nepotism.

The metrics are typical of a call center, but not easy to meet consistently and if you don't meet them consistently you can be placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).
Many requests for additional coaching and training went unanswered so, how can you improve your performance? Assimilation?? 

The initial training for what can be complicated financial tasks was inadequate and lacking in any real-time or hands-on experience. All follow-up training was lacking as well. No hand-outs, the trainers are not actual trainers, just co-workers and a.limited time allotted to training because everyone must get back to the phones. You are expected to memorize as much as you can and apply it to the best of your ability. 

There are multiple VG locations, but the reach across from one location to another feels very much like "them against us". Co-workers do not treat each other with respect and certainly management does not seem to respect those in the trenches. 

Overall, I felt like I took a lot of abuse from callers and co-workers and didn't get much support from management. Set-up to fail.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Being able to permanently work from home.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Not enough training and dealing with transfers to other departments. 



What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The department I worked in was full of Temps but employees working directly for Vanguard are elitist and rude and will go out of their way to report you to your manager if you accidentally transfer a customer to their department by mistake. Some other departments take only 5 to 10 calls per shift while my department took 30 to 70 so if you transfer a customer by mistake or even at all they last out at you for interrupting them from goofing off all day and being paid for it. Their abundance of free time also guarantees that you will be reported for making any mistake they catch that you make. Temps are rushed through training in around 3 weeks to a month while permanent agents have 4 times that amount plus Vanguard pays for their licensing. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Back to back calls some lasting  up to three hours trying to coach elderly people in their 90s how to switch from paper statements in the mail to electronic statements that none of them want. They are elderly so if they even have a computer it's almost a guarantee that they don't know how to use it even in the simplest of ways. This was a campaign that was launched that either tried to convince the customer to switch to all electronic notifications or pass the millions the company loses per year printing and mailing all of that paper to these elderly customers. They can still get paper statements but they must pay $30 per quarter for them. Fun conversations.

Vanguard is a great company. They truly care about clients and the community. Employees get a volunteer paid day off and have many opportunities to volunteer for the United Way and Vanguard. Additionally, the benefits package is competitive with health care, life insurance, and a 4% 401k match starting in your second year. You get about 18 paid days off to start too, but you're going to need them. You can also buy a week of PTO and almost every one does. The people I work with are amazing. There is a good mix of young and old but my department particularly has a lot of fresh-out-of college blood.

The company extensively trains its employees and encourages us to help clients. Metrics are unrealistic, though, and creativity is not a big part of the day-to-day life of an investment professional. It may be if you are in IT (and the IT department definitely needs people as the systems have been crashing a lot lately). You are trained to offer as much as possible but are given an a goal to speak between 400 and 500 seconds to each client on average. I like to talk to people and helping a 90 year old log online and place a trade on their own does not take 400-500 seconds.

I work 4 days a week with having a three-day weekend one week and getting two week days off the next week. This is going away for brokers in the next few quarters. 10 hours sitting in a grey cube with a constant beep is not what I wanted to do when I was 12. I have attempted to move up but the company moves quite slow and there are some people who have worked in the same position for over 5 years getting paid almost the same as those fresh out of college. It is still very corporate America and is not a place for free spirits.

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