Vanguard reviews

The job itself. I was not aware during my interview what it would actually be like. The job description is entirely misleading- the actual job is only 25% of the description the other 75% of the time you are getting yelled at by clients for vanguards disorganization/incompetence or trying to walk them through the website. I was also not aware that bathroom times would be monitored. They actually track the time you take to go to the bathroom. It's absolutely insane. If they told me that when I went on my interview I would walk right out. Your supervisor cares about how long you take too. Each week mine would send out and excel spreadsheet that had the exact time you clocked in how long you took for your "break" (bathroom) time and how long you took for lunch. If you were over your given amount by even 2 mins it would be in red and my supervisor would sit us down to "make us aware so it doesn't become an issue". Besides the bathroom timing and micromanagement my main issue was that it wasn't the job they made it out to be. A majority of my training was investment guidance which is what I thought the main job would be and all the angry clients yelling at you and cursing at you on the phone because vanguard has some ridiculous policy or something didn't go right would be a rare occurrence in your day. I was wrong it's completely flipped. 80% of the 50 calls I took each day were angry clients. I was out of there no way did I go to college for that crap. Also your manager is probably not going to be helpful at all. They say if you have an angry client yelling and cursing (literally cursing not an exaggeration) then you can give the call to your supervisor. That's wrong. Your supervisor will just tell you to try to "de-elevated" aka calm down the client so they don't have to deal with it. I found most of the supervisors or "team leaders" in my department incompetent. Honestly I don't think any of them went to school for finance or have even have an interest in finance. All they pretty much do is track your bathroom time. Final warning: the funds are so cheap for a reason. They hire poor quality management due to poor pay for employees. They are way below industry standard in employee compensation than any other competitive firm. They are an "at cost firm" meaning employees are treated like crap hence the bathroom timing because apparently bodily functions take away from company time aka cost vanguard money (keep harping on the bathroom timing but I'm just still traumatized)

No matter what you hear, just don't come here. I spent 15 years hoping it would get better but no such luck. The atmosphere is one of Romper Room. The biggest tattlers are the ones that get promoted. You can be the best at what you do but if you are a person that chooses to just do your job and not "network" then you cannot succeed. Its all about being "liked" or how many lunches or baby showers you attend. The other huge problem is being a person over 40. You WILL be forced out because you will now be in a position to start costing VG $$$ for your retirement benefits and such. After more than 14 years of stellar reviews, I hit that 40+ window and suddenly became dumb as a rock. It was time for me to leave at that point. Get my benefits and go.