Pros
They pay for your series 3, 7, and 63 exam which is required for derivatives brokers. And thats about where it stops... If you are unaware of futures or derivatives trading, you will get somewhat experience, and if you are bright you might even be able to make a penny or two day trading.
Cons
In a simple nutshell, optionsXpress has absolutely NO, NONE, NADA, ZERO interest in the development of your career. You are simply a cog in an overheating unoiled machine. Its not about what the company can give you but what they can get from you. When I got the job offer I thought to myself: 1) They will teach me how to be a day trader (I can make some cash on the side) 2) Ill get to learn things like "Iron condor" and "Butterfly spreads" <- trading strategies 3) Ill eventually get to a point where Ill get promoted to handle high net worth clients Boy was I wrong. The job is advertised and as "concierge" to customers that use optionsXpress to trade. You imagine you will get customers calling you asking to put a specific type of order in, or perhaps ask you about whats going on in the market and how you feel about certain trades and events. TBH I did get those kinds of calls... about once a week. The vast majority of calls are old people calling to get their passwords reset. But this is besides the point. Overview: OptionsXpress likes to run lean, VERY LEAN. This means that the managers job is to "meet service levels, at the cheapest cost, by any means necessary". So you end up with each employee taking about 40-60 calls a day. At times there can be upto 14-20 people on hold and the supervisors are watching like hawks to make sure you don't waste a single minute. Take too many restroom breaks and you WILL get asked about it. Growth: There is absolutely no growth. There are people who have been working there for a couple of years and still get paid the same salary. Their whole and sole goal is to get you the series licensed so that they can legally put you behind a phone and thats about where it stops. Benefits: Health insurance is horrible, way too high of a deductible. Vacation days are accrued (you get one day per month, rolls over from year to year, i.e.: a 30 day vacation can only be taken after working 30 months and only using sick days). Also, vacation days must be submitted well in advance and approved. Weirdest Rule Ever: If you somehow miraculously get the opportunity to go upto a better position within Schwab, they reserve the right to DENY your promotion if their "service levels drop" aka they don't have enough people to cover call volume in the position you are leaving aka they are too cheap to hire anyone new. So here is the kicker... if you somehow move upto the other position and start working there, they can MOVE YOU BACK for the same reason described above. This is precisely why I quit. This company is a waste of time to work for, do not go for this opportunity if you have other opportunities in line. This is a call center job, not a career.