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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Financial Services

They are talking about this topic: General Skills

 

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The quotes below are about this issue:
For both accounting and personal banking positions, strong customer service and sales abilities are essential.

Employer Quote Region
"They need to be professional—especially when you're putting them in front of a client. You have to make sure that they are professional—that they can speak professionally and that they can write professionally. And that they know how to act at a client site. And we do question some of the students that we talk to on campus and make decisions based on that." Metro
"Employer 1: When we hire a new student or a new staff member, we really just focus on the technical skills. The people skills aren't that important at that point because they're not dealing with clients. They don't have a lot of face-to-face interaction. But, as they get to three, five, seven years then that's when they have to really develop their people skills and learn how to communicate clearly and accurately. And I think...and I'm just putting this together in my mind now...I wonder if that's what's scaring them off?

Interviewer: If they change course at that time?

Employer 1: They're saying, 'I'm never going to excel in this area. I see the need for it in our profession, but I don't have these skills.' Or they don't have the confidence to develop their people skills."		 Metro
"We feel candidates are sometimes missing very basic soft skills—things like communication skills and critical thinking skills—and how to turn those skills into more of a leadership role. So, once they get to our company, we want to make sure that we can promote them, if necessary. And we hope that's a learning environment for them, initially, starting off at the front-line. But having those very minimum basic customer service skills—and that's where we see a deficit sometimes—and they should be something that they've already learned in high school and maybe their first or second year in college. But that's something that we're finding that we have to teach. Yet, it's a skill that they should have already honed and learned." Metro
"The way that we look at it right now is how can we multi-task them? Not only do they have to do transaction-oriented items, but we want them to be very much socialized. And we want them to provide referrals and act kind of as a sales lead to the next person. So, really getting out from behind the counter and doing transaction after transaction after transaction. And really understanding that consumer, that consumer experience, and how can that feed into our other divisions? We have a mortgage division. We have an investment services division. We just launched our own insurance agency. So, how can we use that contact at the front-line for them to have a better understanding and critical thinking of who they are talking to? And what would be the next best product or service for this member as they're making a deposit or whatever the minor transaction is? So, being really analytical and looking at—going back to your point earlier in terms of data analytics—that's a huge portion of our world, too. Understanding those analytics behind the scene, but how can we give them a glimpse up-front of what would be the next best product when they're live, physical, in our branch location? And then directing them to a particular person in that division." Metro
"When people are making big decisions, they want to come in and meet with someone. So, when they're coming in to buy a car, they want to meet with someone to talk about that loan in person. Or they want to meet with someone to talk about their mortgage, or they want to meet with someone to talk about their investment. Or their insurance needs. And so that teller is their first point of contact—in terms of who they're going to set that person up with. So, again, those communication and customer-oriented skills and relationship-building skills are huge. And I don't think we're going to see branches close their doors because there are people who will always want to do certain transactions in person. I think it's going to be one of those things that is always there." Metro
"Employer 1: I feel for you, because I hire a lot of people that...because banking is changing—it used to be financial transactions and now they're expected to do sales—and there's a whole lot of the population that doesn't want to do sales.

Employer 2: Absolutely.

Employer 1: Plus, it's kind of counterintuitive to the other skills. People who are good at sales don't necessarily want to do detail work, and people that do detail work don't necessarily want to do sales. So, that seems to be a dropping-off point; I get people that come in and say that they don't want to do the sales part of it.

Employer 2: You need a lot of skills to be successful."		 Metro
"It certainly has been a mind-shift in our organization. It's something that we've been concentrating on for at least the last five years—of making it more of a sales-oriented culture versus just a transaction-based culture. And you're right, there are two different mind-sets [about what an employee prefers to focus on], and so it's been a little bit hard. And we've seen a bit of turnover in the last couple of years because people aren't willing to make that next step in terms of becoming more of a sales associate. We always look at that challenge, and we created our own in-house training program, and everybody goes through it on a quarterly basis. But the whole point of it is that it's needs-based. So, we're not trying to make you do a sale if you're not supposed to do a sale. Instead, it looks at the need of that particular person. If they have kids, if they're graduating from college, if they're looking at retirement soon, those are all indicators that there's an opportunity for referral and to make a sale. We position it as more of a needs-based idea versus a whole sales environment." Metro