Ares Management reviews

3.4

55% would recommend to a friend

(441 total reviews)
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Michael Arougheti

86% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

Ares Management has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 441 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Ares Management employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

441 reviews
1.0
Jun 25, 2018

Avoid IT Jobs - You're better off elsewhere

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

High Pay. Good overall benefits package (health, 401k, etc).

Cons

Ares is filled with people who cannot lead and are only concerned with growing their own empires. Culture is toxic, full of politics, passive aggressiveness and almost no accountability. Middle management is full of mediocre technical people with no demonstrated ability to manage people. Senior IT management hasn’t demonstrated any ability deliver a strategy or resolve any of the ever-plaguing organizational problems. They just run from one buzz word to the next and micromanage you when someone “important” complains. This leads to long nights, excess stress and no appreciation for the work you do.. except an obligatory $100 gift card after you've worked 4 weekends in a row. Emotional Intelligence is completely lacking. If you love wasting all your time in pointless meetings and being told what to do by people who have no clue what they are doing, usually at the last minute so you have to work late nights and weekends, then Ares is right for you. If you are a competent individual who enjoys being respected, then absolutely stay away.

1.0
Jun 18, 2018

Just don't

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits, paid lunch, and that's it

Cons

This company is not focused on work life balance, or anything besides making money.

1.0
Jun 5, 2018

IT, Risk, and Security People: Stay Away!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay and Benefits are above average, but come with a severe cost today. Read my cons to understand.

Cons

I am not disgruntled. This is real. IT is and has been totally dysfunctional for last 2-3 years. The CIO and CTO have driven out the ALL the great people, most of the good people, and promoted the marginal people into positions - not because they are that good or trained for the job, but because they can be controlled like puppets. Here are some examples. We had a great CISO a couple years ago that took us from literally nothing to a leading security organization that could compete against any one of our peers (Blackstone, Apollo, etc.). Everything is going great then new CTO comes in - decides he wants to do a coup and take over security (even though he has no experience being a CISO) - and boom, a Fortune 500 caliber CISO and really nice guy is gone with six months. After he leaves, a member of the CISO's staff takes over to try to keep things going, and boom, now he's gone a year or so later. Now the best IT engineer hands down is leaving. No matter what anyone says, it was all due to CTO undermining and screwing with the security team. Now the entire team the original guy built is pretty much decimated and being run by non-security professionals in IT infrastructure - all controlled by the CTO. Coup successful but now the company I loved is just a breach waiting to happen. Same thing happens to our IT CFO. Great guy (hired by the CISO actually). He actually get's promoted up to work for the CIO/CRO. Doing great - everyone loves him - probably the nicest guy you ever would meet - then suddenly CIO and CTO needed a scapegoat for a colossal failure put in a finance system and they turn on him and drive him out. Same thing with the app-dev management team. Three of the original team driven out by bad, uncaring management that are unable to recognize the value of the team. The went from "the next leaders" to "out the door" -- in fact, if you get promoted, that's probably a sign you are heading out the door. I can't tell you how many people have gotten promoted and driven out 6 months later. I could go on and on with examples. People go from Gold to Dirt on the whim of the management team. CIO/CRO is now leaving (justice?) but CTO remains. If I'm an tech or security person, I'm staying far away from Ares until someone above them all figures out what's wrong and actually fixes it.

Viewing 373 - 375 of 441 Reviews

Glassdoor has 521 Ares Management reviews submitted anonymously by Ares Management employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Ares Management is right for you.