How are the career development opportunities at Edward Jones?

Career progression can be achieved at many levels, benefits are amazing, and the culture of volunteering and helping eachother is alive and well.

It can be a bit cliquey. I feel fortunate to have the experience im having.

Ability to purchase mutual funds at a discount and close knit community if you work in Manchester

Pay is stagnant after you join, lack of career advancement opportunities, and you have to pay for continuing education out of pocket. I feel there are mixed messages about the firms purpose and what it wants to be when it grows up. The product shelf is limited and the firm currently charges clients 140bps for services that Schwab and Fidelity offer for free - how viable is this long term?

Great inclusive culture and growth opportunities. It’s continuous learning for sure .

Literally every call is different depending on your skills the more skills you have the more calls you will take & you never really know what to expect.

I worked at Edward Jones for nearly 5 years, first as a contractor for a year, and then as a permanent associate for nearly another 4. Edward Jones was the best employer (by far) that I have been at. Even as a contractor, I never felt like an outsider in terms of how I was treated, often getting free Jones apparel and getting invites to be involved at company social events. During my time at Edward Jones, all of the leaders were incredibly supportive of my growth, working with me to explore possible future career advancements or career field changes. My team leaders, supervisors, and department leaders were all very helpful and supportive, and Jones was always very generous in terms of being supportive and encouraging of using time off, prioritizing personal life, being flexible with your schedule (within reason) as needed, and holding fun onsite events where we were able to travel onsite for fun corporate events at the main HQ in St. Louis. Team leaders were always encouraging everyone to use up all of their vacation time, especially as it got closer to the end of the year - they always encouraged us to use it and use all of it, which is often not common at other companies. At onsite events, they would feed us, take us to entertainment venues, and do all sorts of fun teambuilding activities both onsite and after hours. I owe a whole lot of my professional growth to the people at Edward Jones who were so supportive of me every step of the way. Everyone there is willing to help each other up and explore other departments; everyone there seems genuinely happy to be there (I know I was); and everybody is willing to help support you when you go through a rough patch. We all genuinely worked as a team and made sure that everybody had the assistance and coverage that was needed to get the job done and get it done well. Edward Jones has networking groups called Business Resource Groups, where you can further connect with people (including from different departments) based on interest; I was part of the Spanish BRG, and had a lot of fun keeping up with my Spanish in that group, and had the opportunity to connect with people from across the firm. A nice perk was their profit sharing done in the form of trimester bonuses; each trimester, we would receive a bonus based on a combination of the amount of profit Jones had made that trimester as well as our trimester performance review scores. Edward Jones was not only very supportive, but they frequently sought employee feedback (being very proud of consistently being listed on Forbes' list of best places to work in the US) and would at times implement decisions or changes based on feedback. They also were very consistently transparent, so we would generally have an idea of changes to come very early on. In some of the recent restructuring that has been happening, I was ultimately included among those that were laid off; that said, even the layoff was far more generous than anywhere else I've seen. They gave everybody who was laid off 2 months paid leave to continue applying internally (or apply elsewhere) to help prevent employment gaps, and also to ensure we would still be able to receive our trimester bonus before we departed; provided us with a generous severance payout that kicked in once the 2 months' leave was ended; and gave us career coaches and free LinkedIn premium accounts as part of our departure. It was overall bittersweet but happy for me when the time came as I have been looking into a career field outside of the realm of what Jones does, but I will always appreciate the growth I had and the connections I made while working there (and still love to wear and represent with all of my Edward Jones apparel I got during my time there), and still keep up with a lot of my coworkers and leaders.

While I overall loved the work culture, there are definitely some things Jones could do differently. Oftentimes senior management would conduct surveys and ask for feedback, only to still not do or really take heed in what most of us were saying. A good example was during the hybrid activation; most of us were of course not very happy with the call back into the office (I had personally been hired on as a remote worker, and had never been anything else), and it felt unfairly inconsistent as it only applied to people who were within the commutable regions of the STL or Tempe HQ offices, so everyone outside of those areas still remained fully remote. Rather than give department or team leaders discretion, they often set blanket requirements (the hybrid activation just being an example) in how we were to do things moving forward. In the case of the hybrid activation, I was on a STL-based team, and the only one on my team in the Phoenix region, so it made no sense for me to have to go into the office; my team leader and department leader were both fine with me staying fully remote, but the higher-ups enforced that everybody went in, regardless of each individual team's needs. So, in a nutshell, often seeking feedback through engagement surveys just to not really take it into consideration. My other point of concern was Jones' pushing transparency to a fault. C-Suite leaders would often talk about big changes coming, but it would be months (or over a year) before the changes actually happened, and they would start sharing these ideas and changes well before anything was concrete, and often right after they thought of the idea. A great example was the layoffs; Edward Jones started talking about possible layoffs over a year before they actually happened, which meant that everyone was stressed and worried if they would still have a career for over a year before we finally got answers. I appreciate the value of transparency, but plans should be more concrete and with definitive dates before they are announced, as announcements without any real substance or tangible answers often created a culture of confusion or frustration. I will lastly add that while I loved my time there, the direction that the firm has been heading, even since before my time there, makes me believe that it may not stay the great place that it has been. Layoffs were a new thing (they used to be proud of no layoffs), and also, a lot of upper management has been brought in from outside when historically - even early into my time there - they have made it a point to promote even to the top from within.

Great culture and growth opportunities.

It is hard work but worth it.

Direct client contact, flexible hours, generous benefits, learning and career advancement opportunities.

Small office setting (2 people), Silo 1: The Firm vs The Branch, Silo 2: The Financial Advisor vs The Branch Office Administrator. There is a level of distrust between the FA & the BOA; is it caused by the difference in wage earning (hourly BOA vs commission/fees FA)? Is it caused by difference in licensing (Lic'g Req'd for FA vs not req'd for BOA)? Is it caused by level of control of branch operations and business plans (BOA contributes but is not a full 'partner' in the branch)?

Work environment is decent, good coworkers

Low pay, not many advancement opportunities without being licensed. A lot of sucking up gets you noticed more so than hard dedicated working.

Good culture, expanding quickly, lots of opportunities in future

Beaurocracy, like any big firm. Benefits are not competitive though.

Flexibility, good culture, good leadership

Not a lot of opportunities to advance to different career paths but if you are looking to become a financial advisor you are in the right place

My direct team is great and the name recognition is good

All of it. I wish I never would have started