DO NOT BE FOOLED - MDP Morningstar Employee Review

Ouch! I’m sorry you left with such an unfortunate opinion of us. Judging from the overwhelming number of positive reviews we see on Glassdoor from other prospective, current, and former “MDPs” (our acronym for recent college grad hires into the “Morningstar Development Program”), I truly believe your opinion is an outlier. Even for those individuals who leave Morningstar due to a performance-related issue, we do everything we can to help someone exit in a dignified and respectful manner, without a sour taste. Clearly, something went wrong in this instance and we wish we had had the opportunity to talk to you in person so we could get to the heart of your frustration. To react to a few of your specific criticisms: “No work-life balance in product support” As you know, a good portion of our MDPs start their Morningstar careers in product support. Although we like to say “we’re all in client service,” there’s no arguing that a formal product support role can be challenging. And due to the nature of the role/department (i.e., being available during certain hours to assist our clients), it requires more structure, and affords less flexibility, than most of our teams. But there’s a very good reason we start many of our future leaders in product support. Simply put, there is no better place to quickly develop a rich understanding of our products and the customers we serve. Most of our MDPs understand this “investment” they’re making in their careers. And within 6-18 months they’ve moved into a new role, typically with less structure, leveraging the valuable knowledge they’ve gained during their stint in support. Many of our senior leaders today started their Morningstar career as a product support consultant, so the investment clearly pays off for those who focus on the end game. “Low Paid” To attract top college graduates into our MDP program, indeed we must offer a competitive compensation package. And since we have a very high acceptance rate into this program, we’re rather confident our pay for entry-level roles is on target. That’s not to say that we offer the highest starting salary out there. In fact, we know that investment banks and large consulting firms, for instance, typically offer a higher starting salary. We know this because many of our new MDP hires tell us they received a “better offer” from one of these firms—yet chose Morningstar anyway! They say they chose us because our entire employee value proposition, including our work-life balance and flexibility, our mission, the trust we show them, and the quality of their colleagues, was far more compelling. “Lazy people” and “No incentive to work hard” This one surprises me because we find MDPs to be among our most enthusiastic and motivated team members—laziness sticks out like a sore thumb. We consciously hire for smart, curious, and enthusiastic “behavioral” traits. We try to satisfy the energy that comes from this by offering stretch projects, short-term “internship” assignments, and the opportunity to rotate through a variety of roles. Those who advance at Morningstar are the ones who choose to push beyond their current responsibilities—they ask for more rather than waiting for it to be handed to them. A portion of our annual bonus is based on individual performance, and, of course, advancing in the organization is the primary way to increase one’s compensation. So whether it’s more money, new challenges, or a bit of peer pressure, there are many incentives to work hard at Morningstar. We’re sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for at Morningstar, but for the right people we’re confident that the MDP program, and Morningstar generally, is a great place to start and build a career—no fooling.