Beyond training you to pass the series 7 and series 63, Fidelity doesn’t really train you for the job you will be performing.
Most, if not all jobs, are customer facing phone center jobs. Half your time will be spent dealing with angry customers. Most of the time they were told the wrong way to transfer money, or otherwise service their account, by a poorly trained rep. Other times, a form will be rejected and instead of Fidelity sending an email or making a call, a poorly worded letter will be sent advising the customer to call the general service line instead of the back office group that can actually help with the problem.
Prepare to be micromanaged. In an eight hour shift, you will get one paid 30 minute break and one unpaid 30 minute lunch. Other than that, you are expected to be on the phone. You will receive “coaching” from your manager if you spend too much time writing notes on an account, if you don’t enroll enough people in the voice recognition system, if you call the help desk too much because you don’t know how to help the customer, if your calls are longer than ten minutes, if you don’t take at least 6.5 calls in an hour, or if you don’t get enough new business leads. Also, your job performance will be judged based on what customers think of you. Customer surveys must be “top box” for them to count toward your bonus. If you help a customer who was given bad information by a previous rep, even if you resolve the issue, if they’re still unhappy with the overall service Fidelity gave them (which they usually are), you get a poor evaluation. That poor evaluation is then used to assess how much of a bonus you get.
After passing the series 7 and 63 you get a retention bonus. Meaning, if you work at Fidelity for less than a year after receiving the bonus, you have to pay it back. This was put into place because of the huge amount of turnover that takes place once reps are done with the training and start the actual job.
Additionally, you will be taught how to avoid giving anything that resembles investment advice by directing customers back to the website for almost everything.
