Great place to work but demanding hours - Merrill Financial Solutions Advisor bei Merrill: Mitarbeiterbewertung

Good opportunity to get your foot in the door to an amazing industry.

I joined the industry with the goal to help clients first and foremost because I’m passionate about personal finance and long-term investing. You will absolutely be able to help a handful of clients, but due to monthly sales goals you are encouraged and pressured by upper management to prioritize your sales goals instead doing what is truly best for the client. Typical of a big wirehouse/broker-dealer. It’s all a numbers game for them. It’s sleazy. When you meet with your manager, you will be told how to be a good salesman, not a good advisor. You will not be doing true financial planning here. Your goal is to put clients into CIO portfolios that I myself wouldn’t even bother investing in. With the systems in place, you will run into so many problems that will barely even allow you to do your job in your day-to-day. As I said, it’s a good job to get your foot in the door to an amazing industry, but don’t stay in this role for longer than you have to. If you want to do true financial planning and always do what is best for the client, join an RIA.

You’ll get a decent salary for about 18 months.

The MFSA role is not great if you are trying to do real financial planning. For the amount of work it takes to build a business from scratch, the pay and grid are mediocre. If you are willing to do the hard work of sourcing and finding clients, you are better off taking the independent route by opening your own practice or joining a small boutique RIA where your profit sharing will likely be much higher than what Merrill wants to give you. They are also notoriously known for moving the goalposts. Recently they raised the threshold from $250K to $500K for assets that qualify for payout. That means you no longer get paid on inflows between $250K and $500K, which is crazy. I see it as more of a stepping stone job. But if you are going to put in the effort to bring in assets and build relationships, you might as well work in the RIA or independent model where you keep more of the revenue you generate. They are extremely focused on bringing in money. Yet when you ask to pursue designations like the CFP or CFA, they often push back. The MFSA position is really designed to bring in assets. And if you eventually fail to bring in the $25M needed to graduate from the ADP program, they will either move you into the academy, shift you into a CSA role, send you back to Merrill Edge, or ask you to leave.