UBS reviews

Everyone wants to leave because: - Bonus, what bonus? Your bonus is to be employed here! People were amazed to hear that the gross bonus pools were up - and the largest in the industry and then everyone receives zero bonuses - clearly the pool is skewed towards the very top. - Process driven, risk obsessed culture - you will be rewarded for NOT booking business - AML, Legal & Compliance are literally prison wardens - it is very easy to get into huge trouble here and the punishments are severe - to deter others. - Opening accounts takes ages (3 - 6 months in London, vs. 4 weeks in Zurich) - many cases clients simply go to Zurich for the business. - Obsessed with getting new AUM at all costs and then driving clients into low return, expensive discretionary mandates above any other business. In practice we end up with lots of clients who generate no real revenue. - Culture of victimisation against whistleblowers - speak up, be fired - Siloed business model - your biggest competitors will be UBS Zurich, UBS Geneva, UBS Singapore... - Psychos for managers - please see Alec Baldwin's scenes in "Glengarry Glen Ross" - its hard to believe, but this is what our weekly sales meetings are like. But no one can leave because: - They hide restrictive (if legally unenforceable) provisions in their employment contracts - e.g. you cannot work for another competitor or potential competitor in the UK for 3 months after resigning! No you will not be paid during this time. - If you are on an employer sponsored work permit - you only have 2 months to find another sponsored role - which is not possible because of the restrictive covenant. - Don't bother going to HR - it's a "cloud" service here (I am yet to meet anyone from HR who is not in external recruitment). All HR engagement is via the intranet or by telephone. - The only way to avoid this is to go through redundancy - so everyone is putting in their worst possible work so they can escape via the prison sewer system! The general atmosphere is one of fear and resignation - people are literally tricked into the bank and then trapped and resigned to a life of legal slavery. If offered a role here, please watch "Glengarry Glen Ross" or "12 Years a Slave" they perfectly describes the situation within this bank.

1. No Growth. The whole team basically handles small accounts or garbage accounts that '' real'' UBS advisors don't want. You don't own your own book and you can't get new clients on your own. The only clients you're allowed to service and do business with are the small/ garbage accounts mentioned earlier. 2. High turn over rate: Because of the first reason, turn over rate here is one of the highest in UBS. Not a lot of people work here for over two years. 3. NOT a finance job: Most financial advisors here have no finance background or basic knowledge of finance or economics. And that goes for most sales managers here as well. Because all they want you to do is to sell managed portfolios and nothing else (this is the only way you get paid). It's kind of ridiculous because how in the world a recent college grad with a non-finance related degree is going to help clients make some of the most important financial decisions? 4. Lack of diversity: 90% white male. No female or minority in management. Frat house environment, you have to be boys with your manager and drink the kool-aid to be promoted, personal performance doesn't really matter. Ladies thinking about working here? You will be one of the 5 female FAs working here among 50+ twenty-year-old guys. Just imagine that... 5. Nepotism: I don't think this is a big surprise for most banks, but this place takes it to a whole new level. You'll be working with a lot of senior management's kid here because of an inter-generation program they have, and these kids can do anything they want with no repercussion. They can miss their sales gaol and still take vacations to Europe. And at the end of the day, they will still get promoted ahead of everyone. I've personally seen these kids got promoted ahead of a team's number one performer and sales managers are afraid of confronting them. 6. Mediocre pay- base salary is 50k plus bonus, normally after 1.5 -2 years you'll get promoted to a more premium team earning 60k base. However, bonuses are taxed heavily so you're not putting that much in your pocket. For the amount of $ you're bringing in and products you sold, it's really not that much... 7. Low morale: morale used to be okay... after a lot of good managers left, morale is at its lowest. They also changed the way advisors get paid so it's harder to get your bonuses now. At a team meeting, they even asked to rank our morale from 1-10, and no one scored more than a 4.