AXA Advisors Reviews

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Can be a good first internship for those who don't have experience working in an office environment, opportunity to interact with clients, not much pressure

Cons – Work can be repetitive, can quickly hit the limit of what you can learn if you're not interested in the financial consulting field or sales in general

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Many trainings, access to a variety of detailed concepts in financial planning. Denver office very knowledgeable and helpful. Provide ability to offer a variety of products from outside companies.

Cons – Low comp on outside products, not everything available through outside companies. Must sell prorietary products to qualify for benefits. No company 401k match. Cannot replace proprietary products with better outside company products and get compensated. Life products not the best, annuity products good, fee based products not count towards benefits. No advertising help in media or charitable events. Must pay for all marketing yourself. Not as organized in helping with centers of influence as should be.

Advice to Senior Management – Provide better system to help advisors network. GIve better payouts on pop program for starting advisors as compared to the b/d world.

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Laid back, got direct contact with VP's. Hours were short, and workoad wasn't too bad. Got introduced to Morningstar and some proprietary software

Cons – not too prestigious
didn't pay well
the vp's didn't really care to help teach me too much
the analysts were too busy to help me either

Advice to Senior Management – have a more formal training program for interns

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors full-time for less than a year

Pros – AXA Advisors is great at teaching concept/story selling to newcomers. They also have a strong line of (life) insurance and annuity products that makes the sale easy for the right clients. If you manage to pass the initial hurdle of $3,000 of production credits (6 month probation period), you will be given some form of salary (as a draw) that can extend up to 3 years. Benefits are pretty good too and includes a pension down the line. Depending on the office you are in, you can potentially have access to some very experienced advisors with whom you can partner with.

Cons – It is first and foremost a sales position. If you are in the traditional advisor position, be ready to start contacting all your friends and family to get you started in addition to going out and prospecting through networking or cold/warm calling. If you are in the 403(b) division, get ready to eat your pride and walk school campus with the hopes of meeting teachers even when school policy technically forbids you to be there. Thought you CAN have access to some very experienced advisors, they don't always seem to care about your success (which is kind of natural since I'm sure they see a lot of people come in and go). You really have to develop mentor and partner relationships early on if you want to succeed.

Also, AXA Advisors is primarily an insurance carrier. If you are big on investments through mutual funds, if you want to be more of a fee-based financial planner, AXA may not be the right place for you.

Advice to Senior Management – I was under a new district manager. He was a good sales guy... but he wasn't as good of a manager. Get new managers to have mentors of their own to ensure that he knows how to train newcomers efficiently. Also, to that manager, learn to spend more time with your "struggling" employees instead of dedicating most of your time with your rising stars. Some of the struggles I felt could have been easily resolved if he offered a little bit more guidance.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Sponsorship for Series 7, Series 66 and Life, Accident and Health exams.

Cons – Dishonest management
Unknown fees- $400 to rent a desk every month + other fees like using AXA's website which they won't tell you in the hiring process
incompetent HR-took over 6 weeks for one HR person to process my information so I could take my Series 7
Little to know training-In less you consider tactics of harassing people on the phone training
You can't make a long distance call or print a piece of paper without AXA charging you
If you sell brokerage you have to pay ALL of your own transaction fees
Get ready to fork over 50% of your commissions to your supervisor when you're starting
NO SALARY starting out-naturally when you're starting you'll need to pass your exams and build your book so don't count on AXA to get you through those first couple of months. Just so you know the average for starting brokers is anywhere from 300-1000 salary while training.
They'll take anyone with a pulse off the street and hire them
They're so desperate they reach out to people that have quit and try to get them back (I've probably received about 10+ phone calls from recruiters since I stopped working there).
Also...before you start working there just google "AXA Advsors" you'll probably hear more of the same, but check out how many law suite they've been involved in.

Advice to Senior Management – None, this company is hopeless.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors

Pros – The pros are that the office is in New York, but other than that, none. Unless you like cold calling all day.

Cons – No money at first. All cold calling. Your told you'll make a lot but unless your one of the few who gets lucky, you wont.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great company. Open network to sell many different types of products

Cons – need to sell AXA product to get any benefits.

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors full-time for more than a year

Pros – Lots of help and assistance from senior advisors

Cons – No base pay, but good commission schedule

Advice to Senior Management – Install some sort of base pay.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AXA Advisors part-time for less than a year

Pros – Good and supportive environment to work and helpful people.
You can learn how real financial advisors work at AXA (I've been working for Eli Weiss and Barry Rindenow) that will help you establish your career path.
Solid training program.
I have learned about various financial products.

Cons – The work is not easy, long hours, and sometimes difficult to understand.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AXA Advisors full-time for less than a year

Pros – Very nice building. Staff seemed satisfied and content.

Cons – This company goes by Karr Barth Associates and AXA Advisors. They called in about 5 of us for a group interview and gave us more information about the company. Then they said they would be selecting two or three of us to come back. All the other candidates, including myself, had their master's degrees and so did everyone else I spoke with at the company. This gave me a few shreds of hope. I was called in for a second interview to speak with the president and was eventually told that I would have to pay $650-800 to get licensed and that I would have to draw from my "natural market". For those of you who don't know, that is people that you know like your parents, family, and friends. After that, I was told that I could go for 4-5 weeks without receiving a paycheck "due to the peaks and valleys associated with this type of career". Also, they asked that I work until 8pm and come in on weekends because, "It's not a job, it's a career business". Additionally, the president who interviewed me was writing on my resume the entire time I was speaking to him and not making eye contact with me or showing any other social vital signs. I did confirm my third interview (which I will not show up for) to show them that they are not the only ones who can waste other peoples' time.Thanks for the false hope and wasting my gas money. Stay away from this place.

Advice to Senior Management – Get professional, it will help you not receive reviews like this.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend