Take all of this with a grain of salt, because I was let go from RBCDS. My experience is unique and I know people that have had a great experience here. However, this is my own personal review and my experience was very negative.
This is not a bank. If you are coming from the bank prepare for an entirely different culture. Your time here will be completely dependent on the advisor you are working for. Despite having the same job title as some of your peers, you may have completely different responsibilities, expectations and compensation.
The training is the absolute bare minimum. Despite this, they encourage you not to ask questions to management or to your peers. They will tell you to find the answer on the company intranet. However you will find that the search bar is plagued with pages and pages of reorgs and irrelevant information. You may waste hours on a question that could have been answered in 2 minutes. The nature of the work is also very ad hoc. You might actually find that no one knows how to do what you need to do, and there is no guidance.
Management is horrible. For my yearly review they grouped us into the boardroom with about ten of us there. They served lunch, waited for everyone to sit down and started off by saying "soo, does anyone have any questions?"... The rest of the meeting was awkwardly redirected by a senior associate giving some best practices, but she was caught off guard and clearly grasping at straws.
The cage is the most frustrating thing you will ever deal with. The forms you will generate for clients will require tiny manipulations and RBC specific knowledge. Any checkmark missing will cause the form to be rejected and you will have to redo everything. Since you weren't trained on how to fill the forms, you may make multiple mistakes and your advisor's patience will run thin.
Finally, there is absolutely no way to gauge your performance. I have had jobs before and after where I excelled because of precise targets and performance measurement. In this job, you will be judged by one or a handful of advisors who will make or break you. Don't get me wrong, tons of people have had great experiences because they got on a big team with a senior advisor and had a lot of guidance. Unfortunately this was not the case for me. I worked for up to 7 advisors at once, who had no way of knowing whether i was overwhelmed or twiddling my thumbs. Usually the work would pile on all at once, and you may struggle to get everything done by the end of the day.
Finally, there is no guarantee this job will lead to an IA position or even an Associate Advisor position. A lot of advisors are looking for someone who will always be satisfied with a mediocre salary and job responsibilities closer to an admin assistant. A colleague of mine was told after writing CFA L1 that he was never going to be more than a secretary. His employment was terminated, I'm not aware if he quit or was fired. Terminations, by the way are routine. I had 2 of my IAs fired while I was there and management never told me a thing before or after.
If you are going to take this job, make sure you get on a big team (3 or more associates). Make sure you fit in to the culture of your team and make sure to interview the management as much as they interview you.
