One of the worst experiences and jobs of my life
Pros
You set your own schedule. (for the most part) You will learn to talk to anyone on the phone because you will be doing a lot of cold calling.
Cons
Northwestern Mutual's basic business model is to bring in as many young and ignorant recuits as they can by touting "unlimited income potential" and then disposing of said recruits when they fail to meet sales goals, but keep their list of contacts. What northwestern does is churn new reps over and over so that the senior advisors have a steady stream of new leads because when each new rep quits they keep your list of contacts which is probably going to consist of your friends and family. For you to be successful at northwestern mutual they expect you to set 5 meetings a day, get 5 new contacts a day, and keep 3 meetings per day. In order to keep 3 meetings per day you need to have 5-6 meetings scheduled per day in advanced because roughly half of all meetings you schedule will cancel or reschedule. The only way you can possibly meet these unreasonable expectations is to cold call hundreds of people a week. This is where the misery and unreasonable expectations of northwestern become a reality. What you must do is call hundreds of people you have never met before and try to convince them over the telephone that they should meet you to talk about their finances. Let me tell you. NO ONE wants to meet a random person who just called them to talk about money. NO ONE. Also to call so many people you must call people on the do not call list which is illegal. At northwestern the compliance guy will tell you not to do this, but everyone knows if you don't it's impossible to make it. A further con is that northwestern purports to be a financial planning company. In reality, they are an insurance company. To the public and new recruits, they make it seem as though your job is to take a fact finder on clients and come up with a financial plan for that client. All the financial plans at northwestern do is highlight the client's needs for more and more insurance. All the advisors who are there and make money do so by selling insurance. Very few if any make money by managing investments. It's an insurance business and the advisors are incentivized only to sell insurance. It's a repulsive place to work. Also, they don't pay you anything.