Pros
- Benefits are decent if you can stay around long enough to take advantage of them - The flexbility is incredible - Wealth building is among the best in the industry. Very comprehensive but does have long term vesting requirements.
Cons
There are numerous downsides to work in the AXA career system, let me debunk some of the myths you will hear recruiters talk about: - Your compensation is what you make of it..........flat out pitch to entice new recruits into the "exciting" world of financial based commission sales. Truth be told, you can earn a nice living for yourself if you make it long enough to see some of the "trails" and "residuals" hiring mangers will talk about. There is no way around it, you WILL NOT MAKE MONEY at AXA during your first 3-6 months. Should you stay the course and pass the Series 7 you will only be given 4-8 weeks of "training allowance" for your efforts. The "training allowance" came about as a result of AXA losing a lawsuit in CA because the majority of their new advisors were not earning a wage equivalent to minimum wage, you read that correctly, the majority of new associates have not been earning an amount equal to minimum wage. You pay over $1000 in licensing fees, burn through your contacts (nope, no leads provided either!!!), buy into the AXA system, and work 60-70 hour weeks trying to earn minimum wage at best. - No stability and home office or local levels. All hiring managers love to talk about stability and how AXA is so great. They are only telling you 1/2 truth, no, we did not take bail-out money. Why? Because we are headquartered in France and not eligible. What did we do instead? Took bail out money from AXA home office in France. Stability at the local level? Thats a joke. Wholesale district and branch manager turnover across the company. The majority of the talent at the agency and district level has fled for greener pastures over the past 12 months as a result of AXA's failure to adapt and change with the times. The only thing consistent at AXA is increasing expenses moved to the sales force, high associate turnover and non-competitive product offerings (detractors will argue that we have an open architecture...................) we do have the ability to sell outside of AXA if we are personally given permission from the agency manager, good luck!!! The agency managers are paid proprietary overrides at a rate nearly 10x what they receive for non-AXA business. Where is the incentive to approve your request? If they do approve the request, any non-AXA business you sell will not count towards benefits validation or wealth building. This is a publicly traded company and treated like one. In fact, they are currently in the process of transitioning a new CEO. The former CEO was excellent and did a wonderful job of navigating AXA through an incredibly difficult financial time, his reward? move over buster here comes the new guy, with new ideas, and new ties to improve the stock price.....how will he do it? Cut costs (i.e. cut salary and payouts) and drive proprietary business sales (making a difficult request even more challenging!!!) - AXA is one of many career agencies that introduce new advisors into the business. Do your homework and don't be afraid to interview with other firms, especially those who actually invest in new associates. I would recommend Guardian, MetLife or Mass. I know that I will get flack for mentioning these firms but I really don't care. Don't let any recruiters fool you or tell you differently, we all do effectively the same type of business, we just go at it different ways. You will sell life insurance and tons of it if you want to succeed at AXA. In closing, I have been a high level producer with AXA for some time and have made it through the challenges described above. My personal wealth is so tied into the AXA value prop that I have no choice but to stay. However, I have not, can not and will not ever refer anyone to work with the firm. I would challenge ANY hiring manager to argue or challenge the points outlined above. I have been pleased with my AXA experience but I doubt you will be so lucky.