Pros
There are very, very few. -Free Parking. -Occasional meals provided. -Good looking office space.
Cons
Make no mistake: this is an old fashioned bond brokerage firm. That's all they know. They may want to be more because the bond brokerage business isn’t what it used to be (the margins are too narrow) but they have no clue at all about how to go about it. There is no plan. Everything is done randomly and ad hoc. I think the company is struggling plus their legacy brokers don’t want to change. Everything is done on the cheap. Example: instead to hiring an experienced professional to do something like website design, they hire part-time college interns and berate them while they do they best they can. The yelling, arguments and swearing that has been mentioned in previous reviews still takes place frequently. During a disagreement over a bond trade, I actually heard one of the company principals yell & cuss at another broker. It happened to be a member of his own family. That's how they treat family. Imagine how they treat anyone else. Imagine having a client at your desk or on the phone at that moment. It’s very much a transactional business. As I said, it’s a very old school firm. That might have been great in the 80’s, but the industry has changed and this company hasn’t really taken notice. They are going to have trouble with (and seem to be afraid of) the new “Best Interest” contract under the new DOL rule. They also seem to be worried about BrokerCheck. Why would you be worried about acting in the client’s best interest? Why would you be worried about FINRA’s BrokerCheck? After putting up with an endless stream of unprofessional conduct, this was the last straw for me: I had worked for 4 weeks on a small company medical plan, then I was told by one of the company principles that I was going to have to share revenue with a family member of theirs because of a prior relationship. That was the first time I'd heard of any relationship, and that broker isn't properly licensed to receive fees. Absolutely unacceptable. No advisor on this planet would stand for that. Some other issues: Most criticism or correction of newer employees takes place in public and it usually gets personal. Management by public humiliation. I can’t believe that they haven’t been sued yet. There is NO training. No proper on-boarding of new employees. They have no respect for other people’s time. Scheduled staff meetings are frequently cancelled just before they are about to begin. In my job announcement, leads and marketing budget were promised. I think I got 3 leads in 6 months (one was the previously mentioned medical plan). The marketing budget was actually just an offer to split costs on marketing 50/50. They expect you to work outside of your job description. For example: I kept getting assigned marketing tasks. Bullet points, taglines, slogans, etc. I wasn’t hired for marketing. That didn’t matter; I still got dinged for it. They love to blare their CNBC, with no consideration for other advisors who are trying to make/take calls. I often had to go find a quiet unused office just to make calls. By the way, there are lots of unused offices. I’ve had a number of jobs in my life and have a good deal of life-experience. I can say that this was the most unprofessional, toxic environment I’ve ever worked in. They justified their behavior with the tired excuse of “this is a stressful business.” Look at the Glassdoor reviews that they obviously wrote. I’ve worked in other stressful businesses and that is no excuse. Also, noticed how self-righteous and defensive their responses are to other Glassdoor reviews. The morale is awful. Supposedly grown men are afraid to say anything or take any initiative. The owners want sheep that they can push around and berate. I didn’t cower and I pushed back when they were wrong. We agree on one thing: they hired the wrong guy. By the way, I’m not usually the type of guy who airs dirty laundry in public. I would have preferred to handle this privately and internally, but unfortunately the meeting organizer decided to make it personal and then walked out of the meeting. This review would have been the content of my exit interview had there been one. But exit interviews are what a professional company would do and this place has yet to do anything professionally.
