Pros
Met some great people, including in management.
Cons
They are not transparent, and borderline misleading. They do not disclose that you will not be paid, or that you will be forced to work overtime without pay. The career path goes as follows: The moment you accept an offer, you immediately begin studying to pass your State Insurance Exam, the SIE, the Series 7 and then the Series 66. This period is also called PEP (Preliminary Employment Period). You have to pay for the study materials out of pocket, and will only get reimbursed by the company months down the line. Each test will take between 1-2 months to complete, from starting on the study materials all the way to scheduling and taking the test. For the San Francisco Office, once you pass the SIE they ask you to start showing up to the office 3 times a week for their "trainings", which consists of learning their sales process, products they offer, and the occasional third party money manager trying to promote their products. They also have you start making phone calls to get business. Any business you schedule for the first 12 months must be run with one of their advisors with at least a few years' experience. The true on-boarding period begins once you pass your Series 7, which is also called PEP 2.0. They create a schedule for you to strictly follow, which includes going to the office, shadowing other professionals outside the office, taking the nearly hundred of internal compliance courses, and studying for the Series 66 licensing exam. For the San Francisco Office, it is during PEP 2.0 that they also require you to stay late on Mondays, and come into the office on Saturdays to make phone calls. You also have to go in for additional trainings, where they explain the on-boarding process. It is during one of these meetings that they reveal to you the pay structure. During PEP 2.0 (which lasts until after you pass the Series 66, finish the internal compliance courses, pass their test on the selling technique, and reach certain selling targets) you will only be paid around $700 TOTAL during this time. Note that it takes 4 months at the earliest to get through this stage. Additionally they do not provide a travel stipend, so you will undoubtedly have used up more than $700 on travel to the office and out of office meetings before you even receive a check from them. Reaching all the requirements to end PEP 2.0 is called Contracting. Once you contract, you get the choice of choosing between a payment structure of a small salary (around 24-27k a year) with commission, or commission plus bonuses. Once you contract is also when they reimburse you for all the study material and licensing costs. To recap, PEP and PEP 2.0 lasts for about 7-9 months, during which time you have to work overtime and only get paid $700. I personally spent over twice that amount on required travel during that time. Throughout my time at the company, management loved to talk about the “uncapped income potential” Equitable Advisors provides compared to the rest of the industry, as well as the high retention rate the office had. In my experience, both of these are complete lies. Within my first few weeks, I personally saw 3 people leave, and the rate stayed consistent throughout my whole time at the company. The biggest reason why Equitable Advisors is constantly hiring is because they are bleeding people. Compared to the competition, which will pay you a minimum of $75K immediately once you accept an offer, provide study material for FREE, give thousands in bonuses for each exam passed, and offer the same levels of commissions, Equitable Advisors is the closest thing to a scam in the financial services industry.