Pros
- Vanguard has great brand recognition and is highly regarded by investors, competitors, and potential employers. - The company invests a lot in training and developing employees. - Benefits are excellent. - It thinks and operates like a non-profit, so there’s never a focus on making money. Just take care of the clients. - It’s a comfortable place to start a career. Yes, things are constantly changing there but it’s a slow, non competitive place and you’re unlikely to feel overwhelmed or overworked. - bottom line, there are great exit opportunities if you want to leave or there’s a nice easy life if you want to stay.
Cons
- Compensation is unusually low at every level of the organization. From recent college grads to Principals, everyone gripes about pay (even when business is booming). - Compensation grows slowly due to a rigid, formulaic system that gives managers very little room to attract, reward, and retain talent. The yearly merit increase for “fully successful” employees (the middle 80%) is 1-2.5%. A very small minority may see an 8% raise. Promotions carry a 7% increase. Recent external hires who come in near the top of the salary bands see their income growth slow to a crawl as they bump up against salary caps. This is an area where vanguard has trouble keeping up with the market. - Technology is extremely outdated (i.e. some critical systems still require COBOL expertise). Vanguard can afford to buy the latest technology but doesn’t have the people to implement. We COULD NOT spend our whole IT budget if we wanted to - the capacity to absorb all that funding just isn’t there.