I can not confirm any of this 100%, but I hear they're work environment isn't the best. Supposedly it's a sales and marketing machine and provides little "financial" experience to new grad hires. Going in to some other particulars, I hear that most employees have no internet access and parking is obsolete almost. However, their entry salaries are supposedly relatively decent and money can be made if you are successful. Seems like a modern day boiler room to me, but I don't know. Try asking a recruiter for definitive answers.

 

Chim Chim, everything that you have said is pretty much spot on based on a little research, they are a piece of shit firm.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Fisher-Investments-Reviews-E38954.htm

Employees are unhappy with the company and their clients are pissed about their portfolios losing money.

Also, wow, 50% of their workforce got fired. They were hiring at my school for full-time last fall and I'm glad I dodged that shotgun blast to the face.

 

Lots of info available on founder Ken Fisher, who is (or at least was) a billionaire, a long-time Forbes columnist and prolific author. Buffet references Fisher's father as one of his great mentors.

I had a phone interview with them out of undergrad that I decided not to follow up on; research led me to believe that it is just a marketing machine that wouldn't offer any true analytic or investing training.

While a job is a job in this economy, I don't think a job there would produce many alternative avenues down the road.

 
raider4ever:
Lots of info available on founder Ken Fisher, who is (or at least was) a billionaire, a long-time Forbes columnist and prolific author. Buffet references Fisher's father as one of his great mentors.

I had a phone interview with them out of undergrad that I decided not to follow up on; research led me to believe that it is just a marketing machine that wouldn't offer any true analytic or investing training.

While a job is a job in this economy, I don't think a job there would produce many alternative avenues down the road.

I was in the same situation, and I made the same choice. They have lots of friendly people working at the company, but the experience working at the company will not open a lot of new doors. Also the pay is not very good.

Additionally, I would PAY to not live in the bay area. I would much rather live in the L.A. area. If you don't mind the bay area there are plenty of MFs, HFs, and banks there. On the other hand, the L.A. area has lots of real estate and entertainment companies.

 

It's been years since I've had experience with them, but their reputation on the street isn't the best to be honest. "Investment associate" sounds like their entry-level financial advisor job. Expect a lot of cold calling and not much actual financial exposure. You'll be cold calling everywhere as a financial advisor, even at legit firms, but from what I've heard, Fisher is pretty churn-and-burn with their employees, treating them more as an expendable call center than actual financial advisors. Plus the personality cult around Ken Fisher is a little disturbing

//www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/insights-on-fisher-investments

^^^ if that's the old thread you were talking about, that covers much of what I've heard. IMO if you want to be a financial advisor, if for no other reason than the job market is shit so it's something to do between now and B-school or whatever, you'd be better off trying to get into your local city's Merrill Lynch office or something like that. The sales training will probably be way better, and you'll actually be getting some financial exposure instead of just being a mindless dialer

 
JulianRobertson:
It's been years since I've had experience with them, but their reputation on the street isn't the best to be honest. "Investment associate" sounds like their entry-level financial advisor job. Expect a lot of cold calling and not much actual financial exposure.

From the job description it looks like "IA" could be doing anything: Investment Associates may be considered for positions in one or more of the following departments: Client Services Client Operations Investment Operations Research Sales Operations Marketing

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 
Best Response

This is an old article so I don't know if this comment will do anyone any good. I have been with Fisher for almost 7 years now and my investment has grown by a mere 4% over that time. I'm now looking elsewhere to put my money.

When Fisher sales reps court you they tell you of the Fisher goal to beat the MSCI by 1% net of fees. Well they fell far short of that mark in my 7 years. In 2012 the MSCI was up by 15%. Quite a nice gain. I wish my Fisher portfolio had experienced that. It didn't. My gain was 4%. Fisher lost money in my account in 2011 as well.

Those two bad years were combined with Fisher's total failure in 2008 where my portfolio was reduced by 42%. One of Fisher's claims was that if the market started tanking they'd put you in a defensive position to protect the portfolio. They didn't in 2008.

In sum those 3 bad years offset 2 good years, and 1-1/2 mediocre years to produce a mere 4% gain to my investments. That, in my opinion, is failure.

 

I would like hear what you have to say about the role if you have started already. I have been looking into it as well. Please message me if you can as I am unable to PM you. Thanks!

 

Stay away. They make promises and deliver nothing. Their trading "desks" are a joke. You follow the ken fisher philosophy and develop none of your own. If you disagree, you get the boot. Oh yeah, he was also bullish on 2008. Try to argue against that and you were brushed off as inexperienced. Salary is good though and one of their offices in SF is sweet.

 

I know 12 people who are/were employees there, both at the Redwood City location and the San Mateo location. Previous comments made about the management, compensation, work environment, layoffs are pretty accurate. 8 out of the 12 people were not even business majors in their undergrad, and they did not go through any special training for their positions. Also, some individuals have never had any previous work experience in their lives.

Work hours are either from 6:30 to 4:30 or 7 to 5. Entry level positions (client service associates) are paid approximately 50,000 a year, and if you calculate the per hour salary, it is equal to job salaries of 30,000 working a regular 8 hour day. Not very competitive if you regard the cost of living in the San Francisco area.

As for the company, they handle $23.4 billion as of the quarterly report filed in January 28, 2009. Down from the $38.6 billion filed on July 22, 2008.

 

All of the above seems pretty spot on. Pay can be decent if you are good, huge layoffs late last year, no finance experience (just sales) had a friend who worked there and was laid off last year in the aforementioned layoffs who was following up on "warm-leads". I would avoid it, but if you've got an offer in-hand and it's the only one I would take it and just continue to look elsewhere.

 

Does anyone have any "current" information on Fisher Investments? All of the noted comments are from the Mar/Apr 09 timeframe. Before I doing investing with them, I want to hear what others think of this company from an investors perspective.

 

It's gotten worse there. They want people with some experience but not too much too shake things up. Since they're doing so bad they've had to make changes. They've changed all of their policies so they don't get sued. They have to ask through a series of annoying questions of their clients to cover their asses. And I hear the managers treat their staff pretty bad. Their pay is what keeps employees hanging on but it seems like they're pretty backwards.

 

This is an old article so I don't know if this comment will do anyone any good. I have been with Fisher for almost 7 years now and my investment has grown by a mere 4% over that time. I'm now looking elsewhere to put my money.

When Fisher sales reps court you they tell you of the Fisher goal to beat the MSCI by 1% net of fees. Well they fell far short of that mark in my 7 years. In 2012 the MSCI was up by 15%. Quite a nice gain. I wish my Fisher portfolio had experiences that. It didn't. My gain was 4%. Fisher lost money in my account in 2011 as well.

Those two bad years were combined with Fisher's total failure in 2008 where my portfolio was reduced by 42%. One of Fisher's claims was that if the market started tanking they'd put you in a defensive position to protect the portfolio. They didn't in 2008.

In sum those 3 bad years offset 2 good years, and 1-1/2 mediocre years to produce a mere 4% gain to my investments. That, in my opinion, is failure.

 

Fisher is kind of a joke. I talked to a few of their reps in college since it seemed like a good opportunity initially. After a little digging I found that their entry level job is usually just cold-calling prospects or current clients trying to drum up business. The role doesn't require any financial skills at all, in fact it's more like a call center job. IIRC, their headquarters also doubles as Fisher's house, which seems pretty weird. I turned down their interview and would recommend the same to others.

 

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