AXA Advisors Reviews

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Excellent product brokerage division. Senior employees who have been in the industry for decades and built successful careers can be an excellent resource, but it is self-initiated.

Cons – Managers unable to retain quality employees, as the training and assistance is sub-par. Limited potential as a new advisor.

Advice to Senior Management – Re-evaluate the RBG program as a whole.

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors as an intern

Pros – Rotation, flexible work hours, very nice people.

Cons – Pretty much the only path you have as an option after the internship is to become an insurance salesman.. LOTS and LOTS of cold calling.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors full-time for more than a year

Pros – There is unlimited earning potential, you are in complete control of your own schedule, own your own book of business, and are able to provide valuable financial services and tools to those who need it. The employee benefits are pretty good including a generous stock option plan, a nice bonus structure, and residual pay.

 It is a postion where if you can make it through the daily grind for 10+ years you will be very happy with the money made and is without a doubt a job you should only consider if you are truly looking for a long term position with a company. Don't work here if you only want to get 1-2 years of experience and move on, it's not worth it and there are better places to do that, but if you go in with a long term perspective it can be a good opportunity for those that are driven, competitive, and good in a sales/numbers environment.

Cons – It is one of the hardest jobs I've encountered and the numbers back it up as there is a little less than a 15% retention rate of employees after 4 years. A big part of this is there are a lot of costs associated with the job, for example: you rent your office space from the company and have to pay for it, the same with the mandatory company computer, as well as your licenses, the majority of the planning and organizational software necessary to do the job, and professional liability insurance among other expenses. It's not uncommon for my first salary paycheck ever month to go entirely to these costs.

You spend about the first 3 months of work without any form of salary so in additional to trying to learn about all the products and services, you are required to try to sell these products in order to make money, even though you do not know enough to adequately sell them. Additionally in the short term the pay isn't competitive with other companies in the industry, it gets better after about 5 years and catches up, but that is due to the compounded residual pay in addition to the bonus structure.

There is a terrible work/life balance as I typically find myself leaving home by 5:30am and getting back home after 10pm. This is mainly because the job is at it's core a sales job, which would be fine, but in addition to going through the typically sales process (prospecting, making calls, preparing for appointments, running appointments, closing the sale) you don't have an assistant of any type so you are also responsible for the administrative half of the sale (filling out paperwork, processing paperwork from start to finish, following up with and correcting any errors made by yourself, the client, or the home office-who unfortunately are very understaffed and as a result make an immense amount of mistakes). This gets better after time when you can afford to hire an assistant to handle the follow up and paperwork, but again that is an entirely out of pocket expense with no company support.

There isn't a very clear channel of communications at any level of the company. When paperwork needs to be followed up on you can easily wait on hold for 30+ minutes just to talk to 4 different people about the same problem before ever getting to someone who can solve it. There needs to be a restructuring and a serious reevaluation of how best to provide insurance.

Advice to Senior Management – Do more to develop and support new employees. There is no reason to be charging the employees to use office space just to increase the bottom line. It shouldn't be an acceptable practice or considered normal in the company to hire 20 people and after 10 have quit, lose another 5 on top of that just because even though they are good at the job, they simply can't afford to continue to work at the company. Something seriously needs to be done about that. Additionally, there needs to be some encouragement and support for a life outside of work. Your sales staff shouldn't be spending an extra 30 hours/ week doing activities that don't bring in money for themselves or the company. An easy fix would to be to provide a few administrative assistants that handle the follow up of paper work and take some of that responsibility from the financial professionals, so instead of paperwork the FP's can do what they are supposed to be doing, which is make sales and bring in money.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – They hire virtually anybody out of college as there is virtually no overhead per employee.

Cons – It is near impossible to do what is right for the client and still earn a decent living in the first 5 years. Annuity products are pushed hard from the top down.

Advice to Senior Management – Align incentives with doing what's best for the clients, do a better job of selecting and supporting new advisors.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Lots of resources, strong insurance brands, LPL Financial Brokerage Platform

Cons – Commission Only, Extremely high cost to operate your practice (at least 20-30k per year), Nickel and dimed for supbar technology and marketing material. No formal training program with a focus on small account production. Compensation & Benefits are too tied to your insurance production. They claim independent open-architecture but the only products they really want you to sell is AXA Equitable Life Insurance and Annuities.

Advice to Senior Management – It's not AXA Equitable, it's AXA Advisors. Insurance is not the end all be all for financial planning. Invest in your producers with a base salary and stop charging them for everything. Also, train your producers to build a pipeline of prospects with minimum asset levels. They spend far too much time servicing non profitable clients with under 100k in assets and don't have the platform to support HNW clients. They can't live and die by VUL and VA's because post financial crisis clients expect a lot of liquidity and are very fee conscious.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors full-time for less than a year

Pros – Everyone in the office was very friendly and answered any questions you may have had. It was also a clean and welcoming office atmosphere.

Cons – There is no salary. I was promised salary plus commission and the salary disappeared once I finished training. This is not an entry-level position and I was very uncomfortable trying to sell to my friends and family. Also, the office is not as "team-oriented" as they say. Although I received guidance from my mentor, I was on my own making phone calls day. This is great position for someone with years of experience and the ability to live off of full commission.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't promise a salary.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Almost complete schedule flexibility. Lots of interaction with a variety of individuals that you are able to learn from and also educate.

Cons – I am comfortable with the idea of production based compensation. The problem is when you have absolutely no control over your level of production! When it comes to money and savings, the more people you meet with does not necessarily translate to higher compensation.

Advice to Senior Management – There is something wrong with the current contracts if you analyze how many people are not able to stay with the company after going off of base salary. And when an entire group has low production, don't blame it on the individuals within the group. Obviously, there are other factors at play.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors

Pros – large firm, lots of people, good name, and thats all i can really say on the good side of this company

Cons – everything else in the company is bad. not transparent at all. too many fees invovled for start up, and management doesnt care about you

Advice to Senior Management – be up front with everything that you explain to new hires and not give them a false sense of hope

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors

Pros – Fun and inviting environment, which you can and learn and grow fast

Cons – Can't move up in the ladder that quick your first few years in the company

Advice to Senior Management – None

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors

Pros – you work for your self, what you put in you get out. Nice offices. People are very friendly and willing to help

Cons – No support from senior management. Very difficult to get started. Will be cold calling for your first year to get very few apointments

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend