* Low pay. Fidelity's attractiveness comes from their retirement package but, at the end of the day, the base salary is comparatively low and it does NOT make up for the profit sharing or the additional 4% 401(k) matching contributions. I've been testing the market for a while and found out that I could easily be making 15-20% more (base salary) anywhere else. If you're considering getting a job here, be careful with the trade off because FI does NOT like, and rarely gives out, salary increases.
* Affirmative Action central. Whether you like it or not, there's a surplus of testosterone among Wall Street management levels. It's no secret. So FI has embarked in a program to even things out, which means that most of the people getting promoted as of lately are females and/or minorities.
* Shady stuff going on. I've seen things that are outright a-legal. I can't say it was illegal because I was not privy to the final product but, having taken countless compliance classes (which you are required to take on an annual basis,) that we are exposed to this BS in such a in-your-face manner is really irritating.
* Management has ZERO people skills. There's a manager in our department that is well known to NOT like to work with other men (everybody knows this,) and he has zero men working with him. Instead of this raising a red flag, it is tolerated an even joked about as if it were... normal. In addition, when hired, I was told that the manager was looking for people to speak up in meetings... only to find out that they seems to promote the polar opposite. This seems to be "The Norm" at Fidelity: Say one thing, do another. There's... I don't know how to describe it... just a "shady" feel to the way they do business. I wouldn't be surprised if FI is in the news one day for having broken some kind of SEC rule soon. Case and point: A colleague of mine recently quit the company. His manager set up an exit interview to find out what the reasons for his departure were. They were in the conference room for 45 minutes and, according to my colleague, the manager did 95% of the talking. This is the kind of craziness you will be dealing with if you join FI.
