I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Fisher Investments
Interview
There is an initial short phone interview that doesn't last more than 20 minutes. The second phone interview is about an hour and is more comprehensive.
After the initial phone interviews, I was invited to interview in person at one of their office locations. It is an open floor plan with people stacked beside one another in long rows. There is no division between employees. Feels like an old school brokerage floor, which isn't a good thing. The in person interviews lasted a few hours where I met with around 4-5 team leaders (all white men) and some of the more senior management. None of them were local to the region, which was a red flag to me. There were comments made in a disparaging fashion about adapting to the "culture" of the region. This came up again later in the process and was a pretty big turn off for someone from the area. Also not the best look when these are supposedly individuals dealing with clients where there is an expectation that they have people skills. There were comments made about the company and the leadership of the company not placing value in the CFP® designation. This was a red flag due to the dismissive way in which the comment was made. It suggested to me an organization that isn't aware of relevant industry benchmarks for competency. Many of the other reviews touch on this, but the company is still very much a cult of Ken Fisher. You get the sense that people who question Ken Fisher or his methods don't typically stick around. Drink the kool aid or get out type of thing.
After the in person interview, there was a mock call with a fake client where they are trying to see if you can regurgitate information from the quarterly letter. If you are expecting to be challenged on planning solutions for the specific client situation, you will be disappointed.
You get the sense as you go through the process that all hiring decisions are made through HQ. Pretty amazing that regional leaders are not empowered to make hiring decisions for offices with 400+ employees. This is another red flag in my view, along with the other factors, that would strongly indicate micromanagement from legacy employees at HQ that don't know how to delegate/empower.
Bottom line, if you want to be transported back in time to work in an organization stuck in the 1970's, this is the place.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
There were some questions about investment philosophy and how my view related to that.
Way too exhausting and long, they outsource and had to send the same information about 5 times. Interview with internal personnel is fine, nothing out of the ordinary customer service job.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked me to try to explain to a client why taking their funds out was a bad idea, first week on the job, now I understand it's because you will be basically doing a retention call center job, not giving actual personalized advice.
The initial phone interview felt incredibly rushed. Despite the position being marketed as a wealth management role, it is essentially a high-volume asset-retention phone center. The day-to-day focus is simply convincing clients not to transfer their money out of the firm rather than providing actual, comprehensive wealth management or tailored financial planning services. Very misleading job description.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain a time you made a mistake and what did you do about it.
An initial phone interview was scheduled whereby they screen your qualifications and experience for the role based on your submitted resume. They want to hear your interest in fisheries investments non broker dealer approach to offering investment advice.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Are you willing to relocate to the company’s Florida office to work as an investment counselor?
Investment Counselor applicants have rated the interview process at Fisher Investments with 2.9 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 42% positive. To compare, the company-average is 50.8% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Investment Counselor roles take an average of 29 days to get hired, when considering 96 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Fisher Investments overall takes an average of 30 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Fisher Investments as a Investment Counselor according to 96 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 30%
One on one interview: 18%
Background check: 16%
Group panel interview: 9%
Skills test: 8%
Drug test: 5%
Presentation: 5%
Personality test: 4%
Other: 3%
IQ intelligence test: 2%
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