Personal Capital Reviews

Do not make the same mistake! I used Glassdoor before making the decision to leave my previous job for this seemingly amazing opportunity. Unfortunately the reviews here must be tainted by new employees who are fresh out of training or fresh out of college associates who really love "free" snacks. I could go on and on, but the biggest issue here...and it's a big one... is how misleading everything is..the lack of transparency is disappointing to say the least. They'll tell you that you'll easily clear 100k and have the opportunity to make up to 200k in a position where you are given all of the leads. AND you get some equity on top in what is a "hyper growth" business. The reality here is that the leads are awful, there is no "hyper growth", it's actually quite stagnant when you account for the market growth, and you'll think you're bringing in enough assets to make 100k until you realize that you have to work there a few years before their weirdly structured "trails" start to come in. You'll find you're closer to 75k. As far as the job goes - bait and switch there too. There is a common theme here. Wonder if those options will really be worth anything anyway. Read the other review mentioned in the title for more detail on this specific role. Turnover is insane and for good reason. People are quitting without jobs lined up just so they don't have to work here or have their name associated with this company. Others are holding on hoping that someday these options are going to be worth something. Sometimes it is best to go straight to the source, so I'll leave this here for you to decide how it makes you feel - a disclosure on their performance page: "All Personal Strategy returns are net of fees. The respective blended benchmark allocations, individual strategy assignment, and associated rebalancing are characteristics of a professionally managed portfolio. As such, a hypothetical quarterly fee of 0.2075% was deducted from all comparative benchmark returns except those used for Tactical America which is a single asset class. This fee represents the average of all Personal Capital clients as of 6/30/2017." The performance is bad so rather than be upfront and explain why...they are hiding it in the fine print.

Where do I begin. This will be a very detailed post because I don't want anyone else to make the same mistake that i did. I use Glassdoor for a ton of my research into an organization before joining, and i wish someone would have told the truth about this one. Personal Capital is in my opinion, a lost organization. They do not really have an identity as pretty much everything that they do is a clone of Fisher Investments. Even most of the Senior Managers came over from Fisher, but unlike Fisher that has a true legitimate means of gaining clients, Personal Capital is full of smoke and mirrors. I was recruited as Vice President, Financial Advisor which is pretty much a step above intern because of how the organization is setup. Management sells you on the opportunity to not have to generate your own leads as well as having equity in the company as they hang themselves as a startup in hyper growth mode but most of their growth has come from being in an exploding bull market. I will go into more details later about this but don't fall for it. Reaponsibilities: You will be responsible for rehashing a scripted and canned virtual presentation every hour of the day to people that have no interest in financial management. Personal Capital loves to talk about that they have 1.2 Million people who are interested in their products. This is true because what the company does is that they offer a free financial app that can be downloaded and can integrate all of your financial data such as bank accounts, investment accounts, and credit cards, that will give you a real time view of your personal financial statement at any given moment. This is honestly a really good app but this is what people are interested in. But now comes the bait and switch. Once you have given Personal Capital your information, they will use it to cold call, cold email, send letters, and pretty much harass you for the rest of your life to take advantage of a no obligation financial review. There is a team of "Associate Vice Presidents" (Intern level) whose sole responsibility is to smile and dial and set as many appointments for the VP Financial Advisor, by any means necessary. They are compensated per appointment set and held, so best believe they will tell you anything needed to get this appointment. This is all in an attempt to sell you their sub par financial management, which clients are told is fully customizable, but every single person gets the same presentation to the point that we would put it together 3 minutes before calling the client for this "Free Customized No Obligation Review." This is pretty much what you will do all day. Sit in front of a computer and conduct these same reviews with people everyday. You talk about monotonous and soul sucking work. Compensation: This is another area that is greatly exaggerated. I was told that the average advisor here makes roughly $125k with Presidents club level advisors easily breaking $200k. This was not true because you will receive monthly sales reports showing assets sold and most advisors don't break $100k. You are compensated a base salary of $55k and commissions based on the assets you are able to move to Personal Capital's platform. Considering the firm charges .89% of assets managed, you will be compensated .15% of first year assets with no trail. Yes no trail whatsoever so you will have to constantly grind year in and year out to make a decent living. So let's do some math: Average advisor does $25MM per year in assets which will pay a commission of $37,500 +$55,000 salary = $92,500. Oh yeah salary increases are not standardized and based on management discretion so don't expect any increases there. Turnover here is incredible. The most senior guys have been at company around 4 years at most. When you ask management why advisors numbers are so low, the excuse is that 75% of advisors are within their 1st year with company. So what happened to the other people before them?!? Stock Options: These options are not worth anything currently. Everyone is hoping that the company IPO's and everyone becomes the next "facebook millionaire." I have no way of knowing what can happen in the future but just consider this point. How many employees and investors have stock option rights and how watered down these must be. Most advisors here absolutely hate their job but stick around purely for the options and the hope and prayer that it pays off in the end.