QUESTION
Can one make a career out of working at a bank?
I just got a job working at a bank as a teller. What are the advancement opportunities within a bank? Can someone make a career out of it with a pretty decent income? I have a bachelors degree in psychology and the bank will pay for any business classes that I want to take leading to an associates or bachelors in business.
ANSWER
Dear Ms. “Cheyenne”:
Congratulations, on getting a job. That’s a start.
Can one make a “career” out of working at a bank?
Sure you can; humans are remarkable adaptable. You have to discover “your” own opportunities. Don’t look at the situation through the eyes of anyone else uncritically. (Even me!) Bear in mind the old folk song “the times they are a changing”. The bank of the next decade is probably not even on the drawing board yet?
You’ve got a psych degree so you should understand motivations. Banking is about scared people putting their money in an illusion of security. You could help the people understand the illusions and intelligently plan their finances. You could help the bank adapt thru helping its people change that future. You could seek out the IT staff and their users and translate between the two communities putting the requirements and capabilities in to each other’s “language”.
Can you make a “career” out of working at a bank?
You can make three careers and not even scratch the surface.
IMHO
And we didn’t event talk about the different banks there are — the Fed, the local “mom ‘n’ pop”, the big regionals, the internationals, the merchants, the investments, and all the kinds I don’t know about.
:-)
I hope that you don’t look from a too close perspective. It’s easy to see your job as “just a teller”, “just a branch manger”, or some other current “dead end” job.
I think that your viewpoint is clearly critical to your future success. Be it at the bank its suppliers, regulators, or customers.
Let me know how you make out,
Ferdinand J. Reinke
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Reinke Faces Life 