Specialist - Anonymous employee Vanguard Employee Review

1.0
Dec 30, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

PTO and onsite gym. 401k is really good as well. Work life balance is great in the right role. It was pretty flexible when I moved into more project based roles.

Cons

First do not believe a lot of the 5 star reviews they are written by HR. I worked here for over 13 years and worked my way up from the phones to a few different E level jobs. For a firm to claim they care about diversity it's a total lie. They care about being ranked highly on the diversity lists etc but not truly being diverse. If you have to force diversity than you have problems. I'm a white male with a masters in my late 30s and had no shot moving to management. I was bypassed by young kids who were on HR's high potential lists. Unless you came in through one of the management training programs or have a highly influential manager you won't ever get to Management. HR keeps list of high performers and lists of people they want in the future principal pool. Any complaint to HR gets you eventually managed out (and no it didn't happen to me i left on my own). Every review needs to have pros and cons. If your manager has nothing really negative to say about you it's something ridiculous that gets put in. You are guilty until proven innocent here. If you don't play the game here and network you will never have a shot. Management tells you it's not greener on the other side. Well, I'm here to say that it can be greener. New firm is great and not one negative form of feedback yet lol

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Pros

Large firm so great to get exposure to different groups.

Cons

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3.0
Jun 3, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Awesome coworkers for young professionals. Paid licensing for a few months.

Cons

Micromanagement is out of control. Incompetent team leaders who are obsessed with power and metrics. Back to back calls, limited support, and nearly impossible effective communication between departments. Zero time to cultivate culture because you are taking calls every second of the day except for 30min/1hr lunch and two 15 minute breaks. You’re locked into your role for over a year (apprenticeship for around 60 days, then a year after promotion to associate) and your team leaders will not approve internal applications unless you are “eligible”.

4
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