Bank Lending Officer
Career review from a person working in the job
How I Got The Job
My Education: BS UConn
My Prior Experience: I was an equipment leasing sales rep for the bank before moving over to the lending department.
My Job Profile
My Company: I work for a bank in the Capital District of New York
Job/Career Overview: My primary role as a lender is to grow the amount of loans the bank has. I uncover loan opportunities by through a network of influential people in the community.
After uncovering the opportunity I must review the financial reports prepared by the company and determine whether the company is credit worthy of the loan request. After I decide to move forward I prepare a written presentation to be reviewed by a committee to either accept my presentation and approve the loan request or reject it. After the loan is approved I work with an attorney to create legal documents. Once the loan is closed it is my responsibility to monitor the performance of the company and make sure the loan gets repaid as agreed. At any one time I have up to 30 customers with loan requests in various stages of underwriting, approval and monitoring.
It is a requirement that I be active in the community as well
More Insights: Bankers are not stodgy boring people, however they do have to be conservative.
Develop an niche that not no one else has gone into and never stop learning.
Love It? Hate It?
I rate this career 8 out of 10.
What I Love or Hate
The best part of my job is getting to work with successful business people. It can be inspirational and motivational. Every individual that is successful does it in a different way.
The worst part of my job is telling someone no they can not have a loan from my bank. Rejection is not fun and delivering rejection is no fun either. I prefer to turn people down in person to show that I care about them and their business even though I cannot give them a loan.
My Career Tips
1) You don't have to major in it but it is good to have a few accounting classes in college.
2) Being outgoing and active is important. To be successful you need to build a strong networking group and you can not do that if you are not outgoing.
3) Being a strong communicator through both verbal and written communication is important. It is necessary to get your point across in an convincing and persuasive way
