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AllianceBernstein

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AllianceBernstein reviews

3.6

57% would recommend to a friend

(1,270 total reviews)
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Seth Bernstein

75% approve of CEO

54% positive business outlook

AllianceBernstein has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 1,270 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The AllianceBernstein employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
4.0
Apr 26, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great (London) location, lovely office space (for now), one or two great people managers and lots of very smart, collaborative and frienldy colleagues who share knowledge pretty well. It's a small enough company not to have the glaring fiefdoms and politics you can find in larger organisations. A good place to work if your department is generating revenue (i.e. fixed income). Not so good if you are a cost centre, whatever value you may add.

Cons

Endless, relentless downsizing, aka redundancies. Cost reduction is king at the moment, but to be fair, if you're one of the lucky ones that are still there then the quality of life (apart from more work to go around fewer people) is still pretty good. All depends where you work. Not much money being spent on innovation (especially technology) - much more focussed on getting rid of wasted expense, of which there was plenty in the boom years.

2.0
May 13, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You have access to some very smart people

Cons

There are very few advancement opportunities, especially in regional offices. Management claims to be a meritocracy, but only favors the brown nosers. The hard working employees go unnoticed if they don't kiss management and advisors' butts. The review process is a joke. Management is always "too busy" and behind closed doors to discuss advancement opportunities. There is also a lot of turnover (not just due to downturn in market). If someone doesn't like you, there's a good chance they will find a reason to get rid of you. There is also zero work/life balance. I was actually told by my MD, "working 7-7 doesn't make you a hard worker because that's what's expected." The people who are exhaulted are the ones who dislike being with their families the most. You are only acknowledged as someone who extends themself beyond their job function if they fired your whole team and you have to do the work of 3 people. There is no clear guidance from management on what it takes to get promoted to the next level. One manager told me that the people who get promoted aren't just good at their jobs and work hard but are the ones who think of creative things to send clients. If you are looking to take a big step and advance yourself professionally (i.e. get a certification or attend grad school), get prepared to be shunned even more. Instead of promoting professional growth and wanting employees to expand their knowledge, they immediately push you to the side and assume you will leave soon instead of encouraging you to move up within the company. I honestly would not recommend this job to anyone.

Viewing 1060 - 1062 of 1,270 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,406 AllianceBernstein reviews submitted anonymously by AllianceBernstein employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if AllianceBernstein is right for you.