Whether your bank has 50 or 500 employees, chances are you are hiring new people in the coming 12 to 18 months, particularly in retail banking roles, but also in other areas of bank operations such as loan service, compliance and information technology. A certain percentage of these new hires will be new college graduates.
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Consider college experience outside of banking and finance
“The recent college graduates we’re targeting for TowneBank may not necessarily have a degree or certification in banking or finance,” says Meredith Elliott, SVP at the $17 billion-asset Virginia-based institution. “We’ve got psychology majors and communications majors. By completing your college degree, you’ve shown an aptitude for time management, technical skills and the ability to perform. We don’t have a GPA requirement. We’re more interested in that internal aptitude to grow and learn. If you’re a giver and not a taker, that’s the type of candidate we’re looking for.”
Elliott has talked to counterparts at other banks who are hiring from a commercial banking program and getting candidates who have no idea how to write emails or build interpersonal networks with clients and colleagues. “You can teach the technical, but how valuable would it be if you hired a communications or psychology major who also had the banking knowledge?”
“Whether we’re recruiting for college interns or full-time positions, it takes the collective talent of all our teams to make the Bank of Missouri successful,” says Kristen Ziegler, chief HR officer at the bank.
“We consider the various career paths offered within the banking industry and with internships, we look for talent to help build talent pipelines for our future business needs. We’ve hired interns in marketing, communications, lending, retail, HR and our digital transformation team. One of our interns was a legal student, who we converted to a full-time employee after graduation. She is now our associate counsel for employment law. She has been an incredible addition to the team and is learning the banking industry, but we needed her critical thinking and analytical skills to help with employee contracts, policies, FMLA, disputes, agreements, personnel issues, the list goes on and on. We have also converted IT, retail and lending interns into full-time roles upon graduation. Our talent acquisition specialist is very active in our markets, visiting universities and attending community events. He even speaks to grade school students and high school students on career day to get them excited about all the banking industry has to offer.”
Relationships matter. Use fellow alumni and interns to help.
“Everybody goes to job fairs — and we do too — but that has not been where we’ve seen the most success,” says Erin Fowler, director of talent selection and recruitment at West Virginia-based United Bank. “We adopted an inventive new approach, a more relationship-based approach to college recruiting, relying on our alumni and academic relationships. We have individuals outside the HR and recruitment area who help us with college recruitment. They leverage their relationships with the schools they graduated from. They reach out to professors, deans and administration and keep that connection going. When we’re looking to hire, they can tell the United story.”
Fowler knows quite well how this personal referral process works. She has a college degree in biology and worked as a wedding planner before becoming the proverbial “accidental banker” 18 years ago. “I planned the wedding of someone who worked at United. After I finished planning her wedding, she tried to convince me I should consider coming to work at the bank. I had never really thought about banking as an option, but I ended up meeting so many bank employees over the course of about six months. Everybody I met was dynamic and personable — outgoing, friendly, successful, driven. They kept telling me about all these opportunities at the bank, and so I ended up taking the plunge. I’ve never looked back.”
And the bride whose wedding Fowler planned? She’s been at United for 20 years.
Develop new hires as a way to boost retention
“Our retention rate for bankers and analysts and portfolio managers is fantastic,” says Dave Anderson, head of southern Wisconsin commercial banking at BMO Bank. “When we lose an employee, it’s because they retire from here. They don’t typically go to another bank. Why is that? Part of it is we make sure to understand what the person wants longer term, and it’s frankly up to us to develop them that way — not according to the way we think they should be developed.”
Ask behavioral-based questions
Finding superstars starts with asking the right questions in the interview — questions that differentiate the genuine people from the ones who are simply confident, articulate and slick about interviewing well.
“It’s hard to tell during an interview whether a candidate is going to be good employee,” says Ziegler. “Confidence doesn’t always equal competence. Sometimes the most articulate and confident people aren’t the best fit for the role. Confidence is important for taking initiative, competence is essential for delivering results. It’s important to assess both qualities when trying to determine if a candidate has the ability to perform well in the role. When you’re doing an interview, be sure to use behavioral-based questions asking for real examples of how they have used their skills rather than focusing on hypothetical questions about how they would use their skills.”
Understand career movement is the norm
Gone are the days when new college graduates expect to enter the workforce and stay with one organization for their entire careers. Loyalty is probably higher in community banking than in other fields, but it’s not what it used to be. Roll with it.
“The other day I was talking to my older son [who is not in banking], and he tells me he’s bored in his current job. He wants to do something else, something related but different,” says Rizwan Qureshi, senior EVP at New York City-based HAB Bank. “The old me would have lectured him to stay in the corner, keep working, and he’ll eventually move up. I recognize this advice is from another generation, where people expected to stay the course, and advancement would come in time. It’s a very different mindset now. I see resumes with six months, one year, two years between positions. They do move from company to company.”
It’s the norm. When an interviewer questions the career transience, it can hard to tell if it’s an indication of trouble and a fickle disposition — or of ambition and valid opportunity-seeking.
Create esprit de corps — a great place to work
This is an area where community banks historically have done quite well — creating a positive and inclusive culture and work environment. “The biggest thing with our hiring is to find people who are a good fit for the organization,” says Fowler. “Our culture is incredibly entrepreneurial and service oriented. It’s important that we find people who have the right attitude, the right drive and who embody our core values. When candidates come in and start meeting our people, they realize this is a great organization. Then they hear about the development opportunities — real stories of people being promoted or moving around different areas of the organization. That is often what engages and sells a new hire.”
