The Vanguard Group Reviews

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group

Pros – Anyone there can do a great job.

Cons – If you do a great job, chances are you won't get much for it, even though you outperform others.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a look at your middle management and make changes.

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Benefits, 401K, vision dental, life insurance policy, licenses are paid for, professional training.

Cons – Vanguard runs at cost. This is great for the client, but your pay and growth within the company especially in North Carolina and Arizona will cap out @ around $50K.

Advice to Senior Management – 30 and 45 minute lunches outside of tax season should always be optional. Running a business at cost and efficiently was the dream of Jack Bogle; running a business understaffed and having clients wait 15-20 minutes before they reach an associate was not.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at The Vanguard Group

Pros – I had a good experience here I felt like I was valued and they invested in me.

Cons – Where they are located didnt work for me.

Advice to Senior Management – I like how you value diversity. But always judge on content of character not color or gender.

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – -Great benefits( fitness center, on-site clinic, profit sharing, generous vacation days, work-life balance, and many more). Tuition reimbursement, community garden, volunteer day off!!
-I work with so many crew who are so passionate about their jobs. Client focused!
- Mr.McNabb is so awesome, very personable, he makes time for his employees!

Cons – -inconsistencies among managers!
-can be too controlling and this kills creativity!

Advice to Senior Management – -promote consistencies across the company. I have seen people leave Vanguard before having opportunities to see what a great company we are. I moved to a different division and feel like I am working for a different company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at The Vanguard Group

Pros – Benefits are good
People are friendly
Work enviroment

Cons – Pay is very low compared to other financial service companies
Career advancement is slow
Will take anyone for Client Relationship Specialist, even if your not a business major
Employees are leaving

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – There are a lot of opportunities for college hires in IT and a general "try anything once" and be rewarded attitude when it comes to the Agile Methodology. This attitude is slowly trickling up to the Malvern branch. The company is constantly polling crew and trying to gage general happiness at work and are responsive to results-i.e adopting work from home policy and supporting technology, and adopting a business casual dress code. Yearly bonus in which employees share in the success in the company is nice-it has been larger in the past by quite a bit-but as a college hire it is appreciate it. Not to mention there is still opportunity for year-end bonuses. This year, when the company reached a large milestone in terms of assets under management, every employee received a small bonus and a company gift. That was unexpected generous.

Cons – The company does a good job of bringing in IT talent but not utilizing their specific skill sets or valuing them in an effective that make the crew feel engaged and valued. College hire program is all about rotation which is great, but the program doesn't account for crew with specialized skills and their ability to contribute in this arena longer term. Crew can get frustrated and leave for jobs where these specialized IT skill sets can be directly utilized and better compensated.

The support IT shops (testing, analysis, interface design, data) can also be undervalued in favor for java and Mid-tier developer roles. Many of these IT shops are under resourced and over-committed, generally viewed and treated as periphery to the development process and less valued in skill sets than developers. This is visible on the project team, manager, and upper-management levels.

Company pushes that every college hire should aspire to management, again this is a fine goal for some, but recognition of the fact that people leadership is not the only measure or form of quality leadership is also important.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't just pay lip-service to valuing all IT shop roles, specialized crew, or crew self-determined career paths, actually value them. Make crew feel empowered, appreciated, and compensated for their contributions equally. At the end of the day, we are all trying to better the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great co workers and a great work out center.

Cons – Low compensation, not appreciated, no room for growth.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat others like you want to be treated.

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 The Vanguard Group full-time for less than a year

Pros – work life balance, training, good people

Cons – low wages, low wages, low wages.

Advice to Senior Management – n/a

Current Employee – been working at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – They offer overtime for additional income. You never have to bring your work home with you. The insurance is pretty good.

Cons – It's a call center atmosphere. You must love finance or its going to be a tough position to handle. Many of the calls from clients are to call and complain about problems.

Advice to Senior Management – Provide more leadership and guidance to the reps that you manage.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at The Vanguard Group full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Company is built upon a platform of core ethics, and are committed to those values. Great people in the company. The drive for quality is impressive

Cons – Work life balance is only a concern at upper management levels, at middle manager levels, they throw it out the window
Low cost provider means they regularly retract and downgrade benefits. In the 15 years I was there, they got worse EVERY SINGLE YEAR.
Vanguard actively tries to get rid of senior level non principal employees to reduce costs. As such, knowledge erosion is a horrible problem there. Many systems are barely supported thanks to reduction of staff and senior level knowledge/skill holders. Pay is below average in the industry, and they actively work to reduce it even more

Advice to Senior Management – There needs to be solid leadership. 95% of projects there feel completely out of control, and without clear guidance and direction.

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