A branch manager is an executive who is in charge of a particular location, or branch office, of a bank or other financial services company. Branch managers are typically responsible for all of the functions of that branch office, including hiring employees, overseeing the approval of loans and lines of credit (LOC), marketing, building a rapport with the community to attract business, assisting with customer relations, and ensuring that the branch meets its goals and objectives in a timely manner.
Key Takeaways
A branch manager is an employee who oversees the operations of a branch of a bank or financial institution.
Branch manager’s responsibilities include managing resources and staff, developing and attaining sales goals, delivering exceptional customer service, and growing the location’s revenues.
In prospective branch managers, employers look for someone with experience, proven success, and leadership skills.
Academically, branch managers typically have undergraduate degrees in finance, accounting, or related fields of study.
Understanding Branch Managers
A financial institution’s executives place great confidence in the company’s branch managers, expecting them to run their locations as their own businesses. A branch manager’s job description includes assuming responsibility for virtually all functions of their branch—including growing that location’s customer base and elevating the community’s perception of the company’s brand.
Branch managers also have the responsibility of delegating tasks to skilled workers and are responsible for their successes and failures. In fact, the branch manager is responsible for the success or failure of the branch they manage. Excellent multitasking and organization skills are necessary to accomplish tasks in a timely and efficient manner, not only for the branch manager but also for the people they manage. The branch manager will also oversee the performance of subsidiaries, such as bank tellers, loan officers, and back-office workers.
Requirements for Branch Managers
Because branch managers’ responsibilities include developing and maintaining good relationships with customers and employees, they should possess strong sales, people-management, and customer-service skills. Other attributes required of a branch manager are diligence, strong analytical skills, and the ability to prioritize, multitask, and focus on detail.
Branch managers are expected to be proactive about networking to bring in new business and increase revenue. A new branch manager might join the local chamber of commerce and attend business and networking events, where one often can meet influential community members. For example, a branch manager might meet a local hospital administrator and work out a deal to provide the branch’s services to the hospital’s employees.
Branch Manager Qualifications
Branch managers usually have undergraduate degrees in finance, accounting, or related fields. Some financial institutions will look at a branch manager job candidate with a non-finance-related bachelor’s degree as long as they have a master’s degree in a finance-related field.
Financial institutions hiring for branch manager positions look for candidates with both prior financial experience and proven leadership experience. They also seek candidates with a track record of increasing the number of a bank’s accounts, and hiring banks expect branch managers to be deeply knowledgeable about banking-industry regulations. Once hired, branch managers have the freedom to choose their teams, but they also must be able to ensure their teams’ success.
According to the career website, Ladders, recruiters spend only 7.4 seconds reviewing a resume. Meaning, you as a job seeker have less than 8 seconds to make an impression on them. Most job seekers want to share everything about themselves in their resume, therefore, their resume becomes cluttered and overwhelming for the recruiter. Moreover, the resume lacks a clear purpose making the recruiter confused about how a candidate’s skills will translate to the role in which they’re applying.
The career site discovered the resumes where recruiters spent the most time and focus had
an overview or mission statement at the top of the first page
a clear flow with title headers and marked sections supported by bulleted lists of accomplishments
relevant keywords presented in context throughout the resume
Here are six recruiter tips you can implement right away to get your resume seen and land a job.
Keep It Stupid Simple (K.I.S.S.) Recommended For You
Most of the time, the people hiring for the role have never worked in that position. For this reason, keep your resume simple and make sure it’s easily understood since they’ll be the ones reading it. To get noticed at a glance, Ben Lamarche, general manager of Lock Search Group, emphasized, “be sure to bullet point your most marketable skills and relevant management experiences. Don’t go into so much detail that a reader can’t form a quick mental picture of you as a candidate.”
Deepak Shukla, founder of Pearl Lemon, an SEO agency, said “cut out any fluff or experiences that are not relevant to the position. This puts greater emphasis on the information that actually matters to the recruiter.” Also, try to keep your resume to one page, but no more than two pages. David Reitman, Esq., owner of DLR Associates Recruiting, recommended to “focus on the past 5-10 years.” He said, “anything further in the past should simply be mentioned with no more than one line describing job duties.” Avoid repeating information. If your last job was similar to your current job, don’t restate everything you did; instead say, “duties substantially similar to..”
Job seekers often complain about not getting their resume past the applicant tracking system (ATS). The reason being is because the ATS looks for specific keywords that are already in the job description. As a job seeker, it’s important to tailor your resume to include those keywords that are relevant to your experience.
Yaffa Grace, founder of The Essential Resume, advises her clients to take a yellow highlighter and highlight words that come up multiple times in the job description. She said, make sure you only use those keywords if you have the experience reflected in that keyword. You can do this by supporting those keywords with professional experiences that demonstrate you’re knowledgable. The worst thing you could do is lie about or exaggerate your experience. The interview will uncover those lies. If the interview doesn’t, your performance on the job surely will.
Lastly, if you’re going to claim you are detail oriented, make sure to review your resume for mistakes and have someone else look it over too. The quickest way to land in the rejected pile is by contradicting what you claim.
Tailor Your Resume To The Position
Most job seekers have multiple resumes. Each resume is tailored specifically for the role in which they’re applying by using the keywords in that job description. If you have a broad background and are applying for various types of positions, it’s important you tailor your resume to speak to the skills of those positions. For example, if you’re applying to a developer position, you would want to move non-relevant positions to “Additional Experience”, personalize your summary and skills section as well as the bullet points from your current and previous positions.
Chris Waltenbaugh, payment processing expert at Payment Depot, explained “for me, the resumes that stand out are the ones that show the person has taken time to think about the position in which they’re applying and carefully crafted a document that demonstrates their understanding and what’s unique about them that will bring value to the job.”
Focus On Specific Accomplishments Rather Than Vague Responsibilities
Rather than listing out generic bullet points from the job description, use specific examples that demonstrates what you’ve accomplished not just what you did. For example, using a statement such as “Increased employee retention rate by 45%” is a stronger statement than “Improved the employee experience.” It not only hones in on a specific outcome but it demonstrates your success that can benefit the company in which you’re applying.
Petra Odak, chief marketing officer at Better Proposals, shared “one thing that is guaranteed to get my attention when I’m hiring, is samples. We hired for a lot of marketing positions recently and the candidates that stood out are those that supplied a sample of their work. Be it writing, design, marketing copy or something else. Those that went the extra mile and showed us what they can do are the ones that got an interview.” She added, “everyone can write a good resume and cover letter, but a sample shows that you can actually do the work.”
Take It To The Next Level
Grabbing a recruiters attention requires additional effort. Christy Noel, career expert, marketing executive and author of Your Personal Career Coach, expressed, “it’s not enough to solely rely on the job board or portal to submit your application. You should network to find someone who knows a person within the company that can be sent your resume to forward to the recruiter or hiring manager.” She explained “referrals have a 50% likelihood of getting an interview, non-referrals only have a 3% likelihood, so getting that person to submit your resume is critical to your job search.” LinkedIn is invaluable when it comes to networking with people at the company. Websites such as Rocket Reach and hunter.io help to find the email of specific people within the organization so you can send your resume and cover letter directly to them.
Another way to stand out is by being original in your approach. Andrew Taylor, director of Net Lawman, said “you can make your resume stand out by creating an infographic and including a video for your cover letter.”
Craft A Personalized Cover Letter
A personalized cover letter shows the employer you’re serious about the position in which you’re applying. Lawrence Calman-Grimsdale, marketing intelligence assistant at Jump, asserted, “it’s infinitely better to apply to three jobs with tailored cover letters than 100 without.” A cover letter should be well organized, concise and explain specific points from your resume that are relevant to the position. Furthermore, if you have gaps on your resume, make sure to give a brief explanation (health concerns, caring for a sick parent, etc…) so the recruiter isn’t left wondering.
To start, make sure to address the cover letter to the hiring manager in the organization. From there, each paragraph should be broken down into how you found the role and what made you want to apply, expanding on specific parts of your background that are relevant to the role and finally, a wrap up stating your excitement for the role, how they can contact you and thanking them for their time. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.
I’m a Leadership Coach & Workplace Culture Consultant at Heidi Lynne Consulting helping individuals and organizations gain the confidence to become better leaders for themselves and their teams. As a consultant, I deliver and implement strategies to develop current talent and create impactful and engaging employee experiences. Companies hire me to to speak, coach, consult and train their teams and organizations of all sizes. I’ve gained a breadth of knowledge working internationally in Europe, America and Asia. I use my global expertise to provide virtual and in-person consulting and leadership coaching to the students at Babson College, Ivy League students and my global network. I’m a black belt in Six Sigma, former Society of Human Resources (SHRM) President and domestic violence mentor. Learn more at http://www.heidilynneco.com or get in touch at Heidi@heidilynneco.com.
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There has never been a more challenging time to be a recruiter than right now. The talent market is struggling and the misunderstanding between candidates and employers is getting worse and worse. There are many new skills that you need as a recruiter to ensure that you are doing your job correctly and excelling within your own career. Join Anne, Recruiter’s Marketing Whiz, as she points out the 5 skills all recruiters must have today. These pointers will not only help recruiters better themselves within their industry, but it will also show employers what they should be looking for in recruiters. Check out our website and Twitter for more career tips and tricks from Recruiter: https://www.recruiter.com/https://twitter.com/RecruiterDotCom
One of the most beneficial skills entrepreneurs can develop is how to apply intelligent curiosity to everyday situations. Even better is to develop situational awareness alongside the skill of intelligent curiosity. Situational awareness is commonly taught in law enforcement. It’s where you are consciously aware of what’s going on around you. It’s a 360-degree awareness of both threats and opportunities. An example of this strategy is to sit with your back to a wall or in a position where you can see everything and everyone around you.
With a high level of awareness, you are more prepared to recognize opportunities others will walk right past. However, “seeing” opportunities is not enough. Being curious enough to investigate those opportunities is where entrepreneurial success is often found. This is where the application of intelligent curiosity comes into play.
Intelligent curiosity is directed, focused, strategic, and intentional. It is not conventional curiosity where we find things to be “interesting.” It’s where we become deeply interested in not only what’s directly in front of us, but pay attention to the periphery — the edges around the focus of our desire that very likely impact or influence it. This is called edge learning, and intelligent curiosity is a key element of it.
As an example, an entrepreneur’s focus might be on the development of a single product or service. An edge learner widens their lens to see what other opportunities this product or service might create or what threats there may be against the development of the product or its need in the marketplace. This wide-angle lens creates situational awareness. Are there accessories that might make the product or service more useful such as protective cases for mobile phones? Are there other uses for the product that requires a different type of marketing?
Proctor & Gamble launched Febreze as a spray that could remove bad smells such as cigarette smoke or pet odors from fabric. It bombed. People who live with bad smells every day aren’t often aware of them. Developers decided instead to add a perfume to the product and market it as a spray to be used after cleaning. Instead of an “odor eliminator,” it sold well as an “air freshener.”
Those who develop and use intelligent curiosity are more successful entrepreneurs and they often become recognized as thought leaders. Having worked with and studied dozens of thought leaders in today’s marketplace, I’ve noted their high levels of intelligent curiosity. They’re always asking questions, seeking knowledge from everyone they encounter. No matter their industry or level of financial success, they’re always on the alert. They tune in to what I call their “frequency of greatness,” their ability to dial into the problems and solutions, and ask questions such as, “What caused that to happen?” “Why was that the best solution?” “Who or what was impacted by that situation and in what ways?”
Legendary thought leaders like master sales trainer Tom Hopkins and business expert Sharon Lechter dispense volumes of wisdom to entrepreneurs worldwide, but when I first sat down with them, they wanted to know about my experiences and what I was focused on and why. They exercise intelligent curiosity in every encounter. Working with Tom taught me that he practices what he teaches, “When you’re speaking, you can only deliver what you already know. When you ask questions of others, you are learning — gaining new knowledge that allows you to better understand them and their needs.”
Implementing strategies of intelligent curiosity can help entrepreneurs more fully enjoy the roller coaster ride of business. It allows them to open their minds to new ideas, to pivot, transition and adapt as the marketplace requires. In fact, the edge learning skill of intelligent curiosity will lead them to celebrate the inevitable challenges or failures and capitalize on them.
Rather than walking away from stumbling blocks, they’ll learn who put the blocks there and why. The knowledge gained from intelligent curiosity will help them to move the blocks out of the way, climb over them or, on some occasions, choose an entirely different path.
As a former private investigator, intelligent curiosity was instrumental in my success. When I would get a case, I would work diligently to explore multiple avenues to get the answers I needed. I’d allow myself to fall down the occasional rabbit hole in doing so. Being open to many different possibilities helped me to uncover the truth. My law-enforcement background taught me to tune in to valuable information through my eyes and ears. I discovered more through listening and through what is known as kinesthetic sense — how our muscles and organs of our bodies react. Heightening awareness allows us to quickly understand much about how others are feeling and how they might react to situations.
Intelligent curiosity is a learnable skill; it requires a commitment to the craft and ongoing practice. But do not mistake it for an add-on or luxury skill. It’s vital to your success in all areas of life. It provides the insights necessary for envisioning innovation. It will help you recognize when to put ideas across, when to act and when not to act.
Intelligent curiosity goes against the grain of our own tendencies because of the depths it can take us to. Our innate curiosity desires quick answers and simple solutions. But that is not often what’s required of success. More often, success is not a product of doing what everyone else would do — success is mutant behavior. You cannot follow normal processes and become largely successful. Those processes may work for a short time, but without constant innovation, they will inevitably become outdated and fail or fade over time. Intelligent curiosity drives people to act and think creatively, be more attentive and thereby create new ways of knowing. Ultimately, the results of intelligent curiosity are the origin of success.
By: Lisa Patrick Entrepreneur Leadership Network Writer
The future of work arrived out of nowhere, on the back of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Team dynamics got challenged as members dealt with illness, trauma, and crisis. We’ve all been forced to rapidly and radically adapt to new working norms. The Ferrazzi Greenlight Research Institute has spent more than 15 years studying high-performing teams, but I’ve never seen entrepreneurs rise to the occasion as they have this year.
When the crisis subsides, the temptation will be to turn back that progress and retreat into old behaviors. But entrepreneurs need to shift from overload to shared load, and to practices that can transform team performance to find unexpected growth–and lower unsuspected risk. Let’s not go back to work; let’s go forward.
We’ve been examining great remote teams since well before the pandemic. The most effective ones, we’ve discovered, were committed to going beyond collaboration to what I call co-elevation. This is a “we will go higher together” attitude toward the mission and with one another, matched by distinct co-elevating practices that enhance performance. As I describe in my new book,Leading Without Authority, the work of a true leader is to promote a shared sense of responsibility among the team.
The pandemic has exposed lots of work norms that weren’t serving us. Our surveys consistently show that seven out of 10 team members don’t get value from being part of a team, and 74 percent feel like they cannot speak up in a group of their peers. That failure is on us as leaders to fix. It’s time to stomp out conflict-avoidance and embrace bold steps to move everyone forward.
The shift to virtual teams doesn’t make this work any harder, and may, in fact, make some aspects of change easier. Let’s look at the co-elevating traits that underpin great teams, along with some high-return practices to sustain these traits.
Agility
People have been talking about agile techniques for a while, but the massive shift to virtual has made them hugely valuable to practice. Agile management replaces annual planning and long, painful meetings with weekly or monthly sprints. In these sprints, teams focus on one or two projects at a time.
Every critical functional area of the business knows what the outcomes are for the week. Every team does daily standups called scrums, in which everyone answers three questions: What have I done? What are the challenges I need help with? What am I doing next? Quick, effective decision-making becomes the norm, just as it has become the norm during the pandemic. Let’s make sure it sticks.
A high-return practice: Adopt weekly or monthly sprints. Agree as a team what to prioritize, and assess as a team if things are off track. Shift the focus from process to delivering on customer value. The right decisions are the ones made at the level where things get done.
Co-Creation
Necessity has forced us to cut across silos and draw from the combined wisdom that ignites innovation. The teams I’ve worked with over the years have discovered how remote working can drive even greater collaboration. Using the psychological safety of Zoom breakout rooms, leaders can foster more risk-taking to replace monotonous report-outs.
Too many big discussions about process innovation or identifying new markets become one-way affairs, with leaders asking and answering all the questions. Don’t think of yourself as the center of your team. Your job is to ask the smart questions, and to break the team into smaller groups so everyone’s voice can be heard and their insights extracted into breakthrough innovation.
A high-return practice: Move all meetings toward collaborative problem-solving. Make heavy use of video breakout rooms, because people are conflict-averse and won’t share openly in a big room. Commit at least 50 percent of your time to collaborative problem-solving.
Empathy
It has become harder to maintain our professional faces after so many hours peering into our colleagues’ homes, watching kids crawling across laps, and hearing one another’s struggles. Academics such as Brené Brown at the University of Houston have long advocated the power of vulnerability and empathy. Finally, the whole world is accepting it.
A high-return practice: Avoid diving into meetings transactionally, as you might have done before. Start with a conversation that gets people relaxed and empathetic to one another, going deeper than that superficial small talk you’d normally make in the hallway. Have everyone do a “personal-professional check-in” or “sweet-and-sour,” to share something they are struggling with.
Accountability
The first question many leaders ask me is, “How do I make sure remote workers are being productive?” What they’re really asking is, “How do I know they’re not in the other room on a yoga break?” Being a great leader means establishing clear outcomes and a vision for what winning looks like. If you’ve given your people clear outcomes and set them up with project sprints and they’re meeting their goals, who gives a damn whether they’re doing yoga in the afternoon?
Another great way to ensure teams are engaged is to elevate accountability among peers. No one wants to let their teammates down. Peer accountability might start to feel punitive or like micromanaging, but I keep going back to this principle of co-elevation, helping one another get across the finish line. If you elevate peer-to-peer accountability above the individual, then somebody who’s ahead on their timeline this week will run back and help a colleague get across the finish line.
A high-return practice: After team members share their plans or reports in a meeting, break them up into small groups to “bulletproof” one another’s work by pointing out one risk that the individual might guard against, one innovative idea to consider, and one act of generosity that the group could offer by way of help. If you make space for people to be of service to one another, you get more risk-taking and more crazy ideas that lead to innovation.
Generosity
“How can I help?” I have heard those words more than ever during the pandemic. There’s a real commitment to taking care of people and helping with their projects and ideas. This is crucial to driving higher employee engagement. In our research, remote teams who are left unattended suffer a roughly 50 percent reduction in productivity.
A high-return practice: Leaders can embed generosity as a behavioral norm by routinely asking whoever makes a report or does a presentation, “What can any of us do to be of service?” This kind of help is best offered during the bulletproofing process in the breakout rooms. In the big room, it would fall flat.There’s a real commitment to taking care of people and helping with their projects and ideas. This is crucial to driving higher employee engagement.
Candor
Elon Musk has said that his friends tell him how good things are, while “my best friends tell me what sucks.” I get why: Entrepreneurs are strongly opinionated and often shut down candor from their team. That’s wrongheaded. Fear of honest talk leads to longer cycle times and slower decision-making.
A high-return practice: Candor breaks are the best way to discover what’s being held back. Pause the meeting when it feels right and ask the team, “What’s not being said?” Or, again, divide into small-group sessions midway to ask that same question.
Disruptive technologies and disrupted markets have been pushing us to behave and work differently. But for too long, too many of us have kept playing by the old rules. There is a community of business leaders at GoForwardtoWork.com who are dedicated to gathering and sharing the best ideas in the new world of work. Join us.
By Keith Ferrazzi, Founder and chairman, Ferrazzi Greenlight
