Warning: AGE/Wachovia Positions
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Months ago, I was asked to interview for an “operations manager” position at a fairly small legacy AGE branch that will soon become a Wachovia branch. I indicated to the recruiter that I am interested in sales, not operations, but was told that those in other capacities can “keep their book” if they have one and produce as much or little as they wish, assuming the general duties were accomplished. There would be a competitive “manager” base. I agreed to hear them out in person. Midway through the in person interview the person with whom I was speaking began referring to the “sales assistant” position. When I asked for clarification about the misunderstanding, she said, “well, that’s what Wachovia will call the position once we’re fully integrated. We use ‘manager’ in the title to get better applicants.” I indicated I have no interest in being someone else’s assistant. This pissed me off since the branch meeting took a significant portion of my time and had no relevance to what I’d specifically stated I wished to do. If that wasn’t enough, she mentioned in passing that "the guy I’d be assisting would “love to have some new accounts and that would be a ‘plus’ in my candidacy.” (I bet it would!) I declined to move forward.
Now I see that almost all roles at Wachovia are “managerial” in nature when they are actually sales assistant roles, which I imagine almost no one here is looking for. The new title is “Sales Compliance Specialist.” Please don’t waste our time and your own interviewing people for a misleading role that has NO relevance to the interests or qualifications of the party in question. Appropriately title/advertise your openings and get someone who actually wants to accept the job that is available rather than the one with an inflated title to attract more applicants. I am so happy to have not worked at a wire house. This is just one more in a series of numerous examples that lead me to believe this to be the area of the industry to run from fastest…
Not sure how you would think an Operations Manager position would have anything to do with sales or being a Sales Manager! If I applied for a position titled ops mgr I would assume NO selling or mamaging of a sales force would take place. It totally sounds like an assistant or a compliance type job, sorry you were confused, just not sure how.
[quote=xbanker]Months ago, I was asked to interview for an “operations manager” position at a fairly small legacy AGE branch that will soon become a Wachovia branch. [/quote]
If you get your production up, maybe you’ll be asked to interview for a broker position.
Hmmm.
Where do you work now and what is your current role within the company?
Something makes me think the person you interviewed with might have been a little bitter about the merger or there might be some confusion on your end. There are very clear distinctions and differences between a Sales Assistant AKA Client Associate and an Operations Manager and truth be told, neither position should be pissed on. If you want to go FAIT or become an FA with the firm, then state your case to the Branch Manager and I’m sure that if they feel your worthy, then they’ll give you the time of day. Otherwise, don’t take one person’s opinion of Wachovia jeopardize your judgment of the firm as a whole. They happen to be top notch employers.
I got your pm and didn’t realize there had been other responses… Busy on biz trip for a week. To answer the questions, I’m an advisor at my current firm which is the brokerage component of an insurance firm. I plan to go Indy in either the beginning of the year or just after depending on if I get the cfp exam out of the way in October or March. I specifically indicated when I was called by THEM that I though all wire house environments were out of my consideration due to low payout and I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything operations related. The difficulty was that the interviewer indicated the base for the “managerial” work which would be minimal, would more than compensate for the payout on my book that I could also bring over and get comped on, kind of double dipping. She had no idea what she was talking about since this obviously wasn’t the case, and spent half of the interview complaining about how it sucked that AGE was bought out.
BTW, IH8U2, I don’t “interview” for any broker position. If a firm wants my book at a 35% payout, they better have a very convincing reason when I bring this up when I interview THEM. It never ceases to amaze me how wire house “employees” view their relationship to the firm they’re with.
[quote=xbanker]BTW, IH8U2, I don’t “interview” for any broker position. If a firm wants my book at a 35% payout, they better have a very convincing reason when I bring this up when I interview THEM. It never ceases to amaze me how wire house “employees” view their relationship to the firm they’re with. [/quote]
If your book is so great, why would they want you to waste time as ops manager instead of producing? It doesn’t add up.