Advancing at Vanguard

The company's senior manager of employment says there's a world of opportunities at the financial-services firm

Career development isn't just a catchphrase at The Vanguard Group—which is one reason BusinessWeek recently named the financial-services company one of the top places for undergraduates to launch a career (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/18/06, "The Best Places to Launch a Career").

"Once you make it to Vanguard, the entire company is open to you from a career-progression standpoint," says William Baas, Vanguard's senior manager of employment. Employees can take advantage of a number of different resources, from internal internships to classes at the company's corporate learning unit, Vanguard University. Baas spoke recently to BusinessWeek.com reporter Kerry Miller about the company's opportunities for undergrads, including its accelerated rotational training programs.

	William Baas Vanguard

We have two main areas of opportunity. One is in what we would call our entry-level positions—client services, financial associates, brokerage associates. These are really our front line for members who we typically put through professional licensing. They go through in-depth training, and then they're put into either client-facing roles, managing the communications relationship between Vanguard and our retail clients, or in processing roles, where they're processing transactions and redemptions. Or potentially working in our brokerage area, where they're working with people in the brokerage accounts, bigger brokerage accounts. That's the majority of our undergraduate hiring.

We also have rotational programs for high-potential graduates interested in accelerating their careers, which we're very proud of. We have four of these programs: the acceleration into management program, the accelerated client engagement program, the acceleration into financial professional program, and the technology leadership program. For these programs, we have a very structured curriculum and provide very specialized training. We rotate the participants through the various areas, similar to some of the typical management rotation programs that you'll see out there. These are small programs of around eight to 15 people, except for technology leadership which is a little larger, around 30.

Where do you recruit?

On the whole, it's about 30 campuses that we partner with on recruiting for these programs. We recruit at several of the schools near our office here in Valley Forge, Pa., such as Villanova University and the University of Pennsylvania. We also recruit at Notre Dame , and at schools near our offices in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Charlotte, N.C., such as the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, the University of Arizona, and Arizona State University.

What happens in the Acceleration into Management program?

They will serve one rotation in our quality program, known as Vanguard Unmatchable Excellence. That's a Six Sigma-based program, where they'll be focusing on metrics and continuous improvement and doing things better, cheaper, and faster by using statistics and measurement (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/22/02, "The Nuts and Bolts of Six Sigma"). They will also typically serve a role in a production-management function, in a client relationship management function, and then in a pre-supervisory function.