Has or is anybody working for Edward Jones? I am in need of some guidence with my career options. I am 24 and currently working as a staff accountant. I have a finance degree and desperatly want to begin a career in that field. Any advice?
Bad idea. Very very very bad idea.
It’s not bad if you want to learn how to rollover someone’s IRA.
ctay61983 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Has or is anybody working for Edward Jones? I am > in need of some guidence with my career options. I > am 24 and currently working as a staff accountant. > I have a finance degree and desperatly want to > begin a career in that field. Any advice? This guys are very aggressive in their recruiting tactics. Almost as bad as Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Don’t take this job. It’s the bottom of the bottom of the finance barrel. It’s mainly cold calling.
One would work here as a financial advisor promoting Edward Jones’ propietary products. The small offices are located in cities, suburbs and so forth. The advisor is suppose to go door to door meeting and greeting the community in attempt to generate business. One can see that the majority of the job would entail customer service and sales skills; very little ‘personal’ advice will be given. The updside financial gain is almost unlimited if you are good at selling, but 80% of people earn a simple living in sales 20% make a great living.
I agree with all the above. I think it really depends on what specifically you mean by “that field”. If you’re looking to be in a client-facing sales/planning role I think this is the wrong first step as you’re basically just given a phone book and told to go pound the pavement as other’s have already said. You’d (IMHO) be better off starting off somewhere (ie a bank’s FP division)where they give you clients and a base salary + bonus/commissions and teach you to sell. Once you’re experienced and have a network you can pursue setting up shop on your own at a EJ or full service brokerage etc. If you’re looking for more analytical work, then we’re in a different ballpark all together and Edward jones is wrong even moreso. (again, just in my huble opinion). Good luck bro.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2004-177.htm http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/01/ed_jones_worse_.html They were fined $75m back in 2004 for accepting money from mutual fund companies for selling their poorly performing funds, and not disclosing this to their clients. Nasty outfit.
Thanks for of the advice…I will probably just stick it out where I am at for now until I get my CFP and/or CFA I. Speaking of CFP what do you guys think about it? I seriously want to get into the field I went to school for and I am loooking at the best way to do that… Should I start looking at banks or ?? I’m kinda lost…thanks in advance…
If you’re gonna do a CFP and want to have a job that will give you at least some transferable skills, look at the wealth management divisions of the banks or mid-sized shops.
Great!..does anybody know of some good website’s to start looking at? Yahoo & Monster are just so generalized…if ya know what I mean. Thanks…