We support our clients along their financial wellness journey and celebrate their achievements, as they save to own their first home or prepare to retire. Our bankers guide clients toward a more confident relationship with their finances.
At Key, we believe our clients should understand the basics of personal finance, and as a bank, we have a responsibility to be there to assist them. Our Personal Bankers play a central role in our efforts to help clients understand where they are on their financial journey and where they want to be. We give them the guidance and tools they need to get there.
We have a state-of-the-art digital financial wellness platform that enables Bankers to guide clients step-by-step through their current financial situation and arms the employee with recommendations that illustrate a tangible financial plan for the client. You don’t have to be a finance expert to be good at this job; we will provide you with the tools to succeed. You need to be passionate about helping people improve their financial outlooks and be unafraid of asking personal finance questions and guiding clients towards allowing you to help them.
If you have a desire for helping others and are competitive about meeting and exceeding goals, this could be a great role for you. Serving as primary sales and service contacts for new and existing clients, Personal Bankers are responsible for acquiring new consumer and small business clients and expanding relationships with existing clients. There is a great deal of exposure to product and banking knowledge through training and line of business partnership opportunities in this role. At Key, we reward results and encourage our bankers to grow and expand within the bank.
Related Backgrounds
- Sales
- Business development
- Client experience
Core Competencies
- Foundational knowledge in business development and service techniques
- Confidence in engaging in sales conversations, overcoming objectives, prospecting, networking and outside calling
- Experience in building a referral pipeline
- Strong customer service and communication skills
- Ability to build rapport and collaborate with business partners
All right, so as a Personal Banker what I do is I welcome people to the branch. I guide them to how to do— what to do for open an account, apply for a credit card, apply for a loan, build relationships together in order for us to guide and literally just find the best solution for their issues.
And we make calls, we greet customers, we help the teller line, we coach our coworkers and we're there to help each other. We do huddles. We plan the day together as a team so we can have a productive day.
No two days are alike. That said, there certainly are some themes that every Personal Banker will have throughout the day. They'll start with a team huddle which is an opportunity to just make sure that everybody is aligned on the mission for the day and understand what's important for that team. Then they will prepare for their pre-scheduled appointments. And typically our bankers have two to three pre-scheduled appointments where they're ready to meet and have a financial wellness review with those clients. And then in between, they take care of clients that come in through the door. And there's also opportunity to have clients that are transitioned over from the teller line where our tellers do a terrific job of identifying needs and listening for cues and then walking them over to our bankers as well.
So a day in the life of a banker is really across the board but at the end of the day, there is typically a huge sense of accomplishment because no matter where you're at there's an opportunity to make a difference in a client's life through all the conversations that they're having throughout the day.
Day in the life of a Personal Banker
The thing about being a Personal Banker is that there is no typical day—no two days are alike. We look for high-energy, confident team players who want to make a difference.
Personal Bankers at Key are so important to our strategy and to our success. Personal bankers have the opportunity to meet with our clients throughout the day. And typically they start the day with some prescheduled appointments, but also, they also take care of clients that walk through the door, right? And it's very important that we find out what brings a client in. We assist them, of course, with that need, but these days, clients are not coming in branches as often, right? We know that certainly more and more banking is happening digitally. And so those are huge opportunities for us to really connect with our clients, understand what else is going on in their lives, learn about some progress that they've made on their financial journey, and see what else we can do to assist them.
My favorite thing of my job is building relationships, being able to help our clients to buy their first home, being able to help with credit, being able to open their first account, save for the future.
What we're looking for in Personal Bankers are people that want to be part of a team, right? And they understand that to be successful requires strong teamwork. We're also looking for people that want to make a difference and truly want to make an impact with our clients and they have that opportunity literally every single day. We're looking for people that have the heart of a teacher, as I like to say, that really want to understand what's going on in the client's life, have the ability to ask questions, the ability to listen, but then the ability to deliver advice and to, in some cases, educate our clients and that's why this job is so rewarding.
No, you absolutely do not need financial service experience to succeed in the Personal Banker role. As long as you're a people person and you can connect and really dig deep in those conversations, you're going to succeed. We can teach you the skills that you need to be successful; as long as you have the competencies such as people management and communication, you'll do just fine.
The Personal Banker role
Personal bankers at Key are so crucial to our strategy and our success. They have the opportunity to connect with our clients from transactional needs to guiding clients on their financial journey.
Well, the personal banker role has evolved tremendously over the last several years. If you think about what's happening in banking more broadly, clients are coming in less and less to the branches as a result of being able to do more and more of their banking transactionally, at least through our digital channels. So the role of the banker has really become more and more important, because we're not seeing our clients face-to-face as often as we used to. So it's very important that our bankers, of course, understand what brought a client in that day, take care of that need, address that need, but then it's about figuring out what else is going on, right? Learning about what else is happening in their life, asking a broader set of questions. And that's where we help them with our Financial Wellness Review experience, which is a digitally-assisted, interactive conversation that allows our bankers to go beyond, to truly understand what's happening in that family's life, upcoming financial needs, how they're progressing against their financial goals, what challenges or fears that they might have, and then to be able to deliver personalized recommendations and advice.
Yeah, skills that we're looking for in personal bankers are skills to be able to wanna help people, right? And be able to connect with clients, be able to ask questions, listen, leverage the tools and resources that Key provides our personal bankers. We're not looking for people to be financial experts across all financial products or services by any means, what we're looking for is the ability to have a conversation, to lead a conversation, and to be able to understand how we can help improve that client's financial life.
How the Personal Banker role has evolved
The Personal Banker role has evolved tremendously. Clients are coming into the branches less, so our bankers must understand what brought a client in that day and learn about what else is happening in their life, asking a broader set of questions.
What I like about the work that I do is that I really get to make a difference in our clients' lives. What's really unique, is banking is something that's universal for everybody. You really get to make that difference, you help them set those goals and you help your clients achieve those goals.
But what was special about my onboarding, I've never been with a company that's actually giving you a welcome kit. So that was very... it brought tears to my eyes and it was just a great feeling to know that I was coming into like a family myself, and I made the right decision. Our team environment here in the branch, we really do bounce ideas off of each other, which is very... it feels really good especially if you're stuck on something, or need a different avenue or different thought process on how to basically achieve a goal. I know we partner a lot with our partners outside, like our mortgage, our Key investment services, things of that nature. So we refer a lot of clients to outside and in return we do get that referral back. So it's very helpful in production and also just team camaraderie.
When I first started here, I didn't have any experience. So I was like, "Okay, what can I do to be successful at this job?" Well, we have numerous practices, we have coaching, we have mentors, we have different training programs, they literally will walk you through it and follow through so you can be an expert. So when we say that we collaborate together as a team, we mean it. Like we are on the same level, you're my manager, but at the same time, we are co-workers, we're trying to do what's right for the clients. There's no title involved, like we are together to make their community better.
So what I love about my job, is just the fact that I get to engage with the clients that I serve every day, and I'm able to see how the conversations that we're having from time to time impact them and promote that financial wellness that we're looking to build with them here at Key.
Why Key (retail banking)
You can make a difference in your community by helping clients achieve their goals. It's a collaborative team environment, and Key will provide you the training and tools to be successful.
Well, we're fortunate at Key, we've seen all kinds of different backgrounds that our bankers have brought to Key and have made them successful as personal bankers. We've had people from the hospitality industry. We've had people from education backgrounds and certainly from financial services. We've also had people that have never had any banking or financial services experience at all that have been successful as personal bankers. The critical aspect is that they have that desire to help and assist clients. They have the desire to want to be a part of a team. They understand that this is a sales role and that is not something that intimidates them, but it's something that they find motivating. And that they're willing to listen and ask questions. And again, we have all kinds of support mechanisms in place and resources and tools to allow our personal bankers to be able to provide that financial advice despite not having the personal background in finance that they might not have.
My advice to anyone who is interviewing for retail banking, just be honest, and be yourself, really. Being able to be upfront in the beginning. For example, I got with my manager and when I spoke to her during my interview process, she asked me what was my career goals? My career goals was to take on leadership and to one day be a Branch Manager. And within two years I've been accepted into what's called our LEAP Program. It's our Leadership Excellence Acceleration Program. And I'm currently enrolled in it and thanks to the help of just being open and honest and being upfront, my manager was able to nominate me.
What made me join Key was the fact that I was able to see a clear career path from where I was at and where I wanted to go. So I knew that Key was invested in that Licensed Relationship Manager position and that they are helping those bankers that want to be Licensed Relationship Managers grow in that area. And also, you know, I'm able to continue my journey and hopefully at someday become a Financial Advisor. So there's a very clear career path from beginning to end, onboarding till to now. So I would say with the leadership that I've worked closely with, that they are in constant communication with me, making sure that I am on that career path that I want to be on. So they have made it clear how my work impacts the branch and that motivates me to dive deeper with the clients and to continue that career path with Key. So that's what I love is that our leaders are in constant communication with us making sure that we are where we want to be now so that we can be where we want to be tomorrow.
Career opportunities in retail banking at Key
Every day you'll learn banking from a transactional standpoint to a sales aspect and deliver real client impact. You'll see lots of different experiences and interactions, and each of those interactions represents an opportunity. There are dynamic roles for individuals who thrive in a highly interactive environment and love working with clients.
So I started as a teller and I was very committed in that role to uncovering additional opportunities and having that conversation with clients. So beyond that I was told hey you would make a good banker. So for me, that really resonated with me and I felt that I was able to step into that role with confidence because of the experience I had as a teller. From there I was able to be nominated into that licensed banker program and obtain those securities licenses so that I could do that more long-term planning. So that's been exciting for me to build my career path, starting as a teller.
So as a Licensed Relationship Manager, I'm kind of a hybrid between functioning as a banker and then also under the Key Investment Services® umbrella. So as a banker, I'm able to do financial wellness guides with clients, uncover their financial needs and then under that investment umbrella I do a little bit more long-term planning with our clients around their finances.
Yeah so a typical day in the life of a Licensed Relationship Manager would involve onboarding new clients, building those relationships with your existing clients and following up with the clients that you have making those phone calls. So my favorite thing about being a Licensed Relationship Manager is the face-to-face interaction that you get with those clients. So you are able to see the way that you're impacting their life and improving their life by having that continuing relationship and that ongoing financial conversation.
The Licensed Relationship Manager role
In the Licensed Relationship Manager role, you can see how you're impacting a client's life through a continuing relationship and ongoing financial conversations.
We offer a wide range of Personal Banker opportunities across our 1,100+ full-service branches.
