Sinking Ship - Assigned Representative Vanguard Employee Review

1.0
24 Dec 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people. The best thing about my job is all of my coworkers. Other than that the job is miserable and unrewarding.

Cons

The pay is terrible. Look at any other financial firm and they will pay you at LEAST 10K more. That's before all the benefits. Vanguard tries to say their "total compensation", which means base pay, benefits, partnership, etc is on pace with what other companies offer. It's not. Vanguard is growing by leaps and bounds. There are literally so many inbound request to move money in that they can't keep up. Clients are starting to realize that they don't have their stuff together. Hold times are on average at least 20 minutes to get a client to any other department. Especially the good for nothing "transfer department". I work as an assigned representative for high net worth clients, clients with $1 million or more in Vanguard assets. When I started in this role a mere two years ago it was amazing. At that time it was a salary role, bonus eligible and all about managing the client relationship with Vanguard. About three months into this role EVERYTHING changed. We are now required to do outbound sales calls with NO additional compensation. Management says a lot of bs, that these aren't sales calls but they are. I don't know why else you would call clients to pursue them to sign up for the managed advice service?! At the same time they made this an hourly role, no longer bonus eligible and now due to our volumes and all the smart people who have left this company the rest of us who are still here are "forced" into working overtime. I am now required to help out with the queue. That was not in the original job description but now on top of managing a book of clients and making stupid outcalls, we have to "help the business" and take queue calls 2-3 days a week which takes up a huge chunk of time. The 37.5 hour work weeks is something that no longer exists. I can't get away with working less than 45 hours a week on average. PTO. Yes they give you a decent amount and you can buy more which is great. However can you get time off when you want/need it? No. Especially in the high volume time now you have 0 shot. Forget it all your PTO will be rejected and you'll be forced to use what they call Unscheduled PTO. If you get too many of those get ready for a write up. This used to only be a problem in tax season however there has been steady ridiculous volumes for the past 8 months now with no end in sight. It is near IMPOSSIBLE to move up in this company if you didn't come in as a VADP (Vanguard Advanced Development Program) crew member. Those crew members are fresh out of college with little to no experience and they become the future leaders of Vanguard. Probably why this company has become so messed up. Not to mention why even move up? When they changed my role to hourly they also implemented to change that any promotions are only a 7% raise. Great. Idea.

Explore other reviews about Vanguard

3.0
3 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Awesome coworkers for young professionals. Paid licensing for a few months.

Cons

Micromanagement is out of control. Incompetent team leaders who are obsessed with power and metrics. Back to back calls, limited support, and nearly impossible effective communication between departments. Zero time to cultivate culture because you are taking calls every second of the day except for 30min/1hr lunch and two 15 minute breaks. You’re locked into your role for over a year (apprenticeship for around 60 days, then a year after promotion to associate) and your team leaders will not approve internal applications unless you are “eligible”.

4
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