Not Recommended if You Want to be an Actual Financial Advisor - Retirement Specialist Equitable Advisors Employee Review

1.0
17 Feb 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I really can't say Equitable has any pros from an employee standpoint, unless you like being a telemarketer and handing over clients you put all the work into getting.

Cons

I have been licensed (7 & 63) for 21 years and decided I was tired of making money for Big Corporate. I wanted to work for "me" and decide what clients I wanted to work with. When Equitable Advisors contacted me, they sang me the song of how they would help me get my personal business off the ground. I did they whole PEP, contracted as "commission only" because I believed in their Mission Statement. The training is a big joke. You are assigned a manager who's compensation depends on the amount of business you bring in. Endless cold calling and if that's not happening you are in mandatory Zoom meetings listening to speeches from a bunch of higher ups bragging about their success and how they did it my making 500 calls a day for 2 years. They even make you come into the office just so they can watch you personally make the dials. It's not character building what so ever. Your clients aren't actually your clients like they claim. You're not running your own business, Equitable is running you. When you leave, they force surrender of all of your clients and leave you starting again from the ground up. Then, 2 years later, they come after you for frivolous fees, that you never new existed and threaten your livelihood if you don't pay by having a collector send threatening letters & calls. What a huge mistake, after I contracted I was left cold with a list of "dials" to make. With a lot of effort (on my own) I managed to build up a modest book, just to have it all taken from me when I resigned 2 years later.

Explore other reviews about Equitable Advisors

5.0
2 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Compensation structure, product availability, brokerage system, overall tools, open structure to do best for your clients

Cons

Support staff are more hands off, not a lot of in house support staff members.

1.0
26 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Complete freedom to build your book of business anmd schedule.

Cons

Horrendous place to start. Managers run their own practice and have little to no time to actually help you outside of your joint meetings so you're on your own. They only give you 2 options to get clients, cold calling or their retirement benefits group through schools. Basically the whole advising piece is to just to sell life insurance and annuities. The support staff is thin so you're kind of on your own with paperwork and compliance docs. They just genuinely offer you nothing. No help with covering costs (you pay for all your licensing and marketing materials), they even charge you for using the company laptop and fees for programs you will never use. They will mislead you about the commission payouts and you only really get something if you get them to buy an annuity or life insurance. If you also have a remaining balance of any fees when you leave, they will literally sending you threatening letters demanding the money and threaten you with claims court if you don't pay it back.

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