Pros
- Go home on time (minus tax season) - Work 40 or less hours - Before you read the cons below, know that there are people in this job that are truly service oriented, love talking to people, can do sales, and are looking to become either investment sales reps or advisers. These people are happy here. This role suits them so well. If you are literally any one else...especially someone that is not a salesperson, more analytical, you will suffer greatly here.
Cons
- Mundane, repetitive, mind-numbing work - Your job is basically a glorified secretary - The majority of your day is listening to people complain, solving clerical issues such as incorrectly filled out paperwork or website issues, placing trades, and overall dealing with old people who are usually very frustrated and slow - You are micromanaged, every second of your day is tracked and planned, even your bathroom time comes out of your break time. - The phones are always ringing. Call fatigue is real. You will burn out at some point and either quit or find a new job in the company if you’re so lucky (hundreds apply for nearly every opening). Management has decided that it’s more important for us to always be taking calls rather than get breaks between calls, so you’ll take calls from other departments if you’re area isn’t busy. And marketing will send out material constantly so people will call during slow months. - You’re doing sales in an operational environment. Your job is to basically take whatever call you get, whether it be someone changing their address or wanting to move money, and sell them on some kind of Vanguard product. Your job performance is measured based on how many sales conversations you have and how many people you get to our adviser services...however, no one calling in wants to talk about that, they just want to get their one service item taken care of and then leave most of the time...so good luck. It’s demoralizing and exhausting and frustrating. - This year alone nearly half the workforce in retail quit, a lot of them leaving the industry altogether. - Also, there is a high chance that your leader will have never done your job before. So get ready to feel the rage of having someone that’s never been in your shoes telling you it’s not so bad or to cheer up. Or they just won’t know how to help. Leaders in this segment of Vanguard don’t really have any room to add value. You can pretty much do this job on your own. - Pay is not great. After taxes, there is a high chance that your rent will take at least a third of your monthly pay if not more due to how expensive the area is.