Hello fellow CFA-ers, I’m interested in your experience working for Russell, or what you’ve heard from friends. They are in Fortune’s 100 Best US Companies to Work For. Large shop with 2 trillion under management. Tons of jobs related to the manager of managers thing. Corporate office in Tacoma WA which I’m not so thrilled about. However they also have a London office (I’m in Seattle but am interested in relocating to London in 3-5yrs so I see this as a potential bridge). What is the culture like? Fun crowd or a drag on your enthusiasm? How easy is it to move around between groups? Bonuses?
at least the commute is easier going that way
That’s true. Aren’t they working on some sort of rail or something for Sea-to-Tac workers?
i dont know, i drove down that way last week and there was a lot of construction going on.
I interviewed with them once. The building is fantastic. Most all of the people I met with were seemingly very intelligent. Both of the managers I met with are charter holders. First I met with one guy, then I met with him and another manager. Then they sent in five other people, people whom I would have been working with. At that point, I knew I wasn’t going to be asked back. Lot’s of arms crossed, very standoffish, not real welcoming, very clicky. Most questions revolved the theme of “Why should we hire you?” After that, I met with the HR manager and filled out a bunch of paper work. I’ve been told they hire a lot from Univ. of Puget Sound, UW, and other local universities. The trading desk was super sexy. If you are accepted, I bet it would be an awesome place to work. One big drawback though would be living in Tacoma. I wish we had more organizations like them here in PDX.
I’ve interviewed with them too. They don’t pay very much. Say it’s because Tacoma has a lower cost of living. But good firm overall–they get lots of ivy recruits. CFA is real big there.
I’ve interviewed with them as well. I turned down an offer out of undergrad at their FX desk. That was 4 years ago, now have my charter but I know there are still a lot of opportunities there.
Have the same opinion as the last couple of posters that have interviewed there. It would have been a relocation to Seattle for me, along with the commute to Tacoma. I was requesting 200k+ total comp as I was moving from an associate role, had 5yrs exp, was looking to move into an asst or jr PM role. I have to believe that was my undoing as I think they were looking to pay maybe 100-120 total comp. Regardless; it would be very hard to move from a multi-manager strategy back to a position where you’re actually managing investments… I also have experience with these guys, from a money manager perspective. From a Fixed Income standpoint, they put a ton of cash into standard guys, PIMCO, WAMCO, etc. It’s very hard for them to think outside of the box. They’re basically putting their money on whoever won the last race. For them to have the attitude they have is unfound. Many of them don’t have experience actually managing money, trading, looking at bonds, etc.
PDX, I can confirm they hire a lot from UW. The GF is in the fulltime MBA program, met with them about an internship, they told her the % of interns that end up taking full-time jobs and it was high. They also told her they get something like 3000 resumes a month. Looking at a position. Learned the salary band yesterday and it does seem a rather low, basically I would be asking for the very tip-top of their band and even that would only be a 10% bump over my current salary (neutralized by time and gas spent). Bonus of 10-15%. The building and gym sounds nice. Bracing myself for attitude in the interview process.