Pros
Fantastic opportunity to learn about a broad range of investment products from a major wirehouse, opportunities to learn from many different Financial Advisors how to run a practice
Cons
Typically you must support between 3-5 highly demanding Financial Advisors, and all of their corresponding clients. The company's way of managing teams is highly irregular. Most companies allow feedback of all colleagues on a team. However, here they only "manage" support staff, rather than also allowing for colleagues to provide feedback about Financial Advisors. However, Advisors are able to give feedback about their support staff. Management never solicits feedback from support staff about Financial Advisors, so depending on whom you work for, your life could be miserable and management doesn't take steps to bring that in line, nor solicit feedback from others. Basically, the only time you will work directly with your manager is when you come in for a review annually, where you're told what your current Financial Advisors think of you. (Which is the only time you'll ever work with your manager--NO "one-on-ones" quarterly like at other firms, no coaching, no growth opportunities. As a support staff member, you'll only hear what your Financial Advisors say about you--but they aren't your managers, they aren't trained HR professionals, and you'll only hear what they say about you from your manager. Its a very odd dynamic, in that everyone doesn't just all get in the same room and talk about team dynamics at all, and how to improve them. It's incredibly strange.