Growing Your Financial Institution Career
If you aspire for career growth, you can’t be complacent. You are where you are today because of your unique mix of education, skills and experience. The question is, where do you want to be tomorrow?
The key to your future success is an ongoing commitment to professional and personal development. By getting better at what you do and expanding the boundaries of what you understand, you become more valuable to your team, members, and financial institution. In fact, you become a bigger player in the entire industry, which widens your world to new career opportunities as well.
So, where do you start?
Step 1: Research
- Learn about opportunities, different departments, jobs. You can talk to HR and do research thought the company website.
- Talk to people in positions that interest you.
- Research financial institution publications for ideas on what interest you.
Step 2: Start your path – Once you decide where you want to be you need to figure out how to get there.
- Any certification
- What degree if any
- What is the skill set needed?
- What is the average years of experience needed
- Find shadowing opportunities through your financial institution.
Step 3: Patience, Patience, Patience. This is the hardest part but it takes both time and effort to move up.
- Work with your manager on a career plan.
- Expect to start at the bottom and work your way up, especially if making a career move.
- Don’t be afraid to take a step back to move forward, especially with salary. In the long run taking a small pay cut for happiness and growth is always worth it. The money will follow.
- Continue to research and work at what you need to take that next step.
Step 4: Be a rock star
- No matter what the job you have always make sure you go above and beyond. People will remember that.
- Exceeding expectations in your current role will always get you noticed. You will find yourself becoming invaluable to your company, which in turn makes them want to help you grow your career within the organization.
Step 5: Continue to figure out what you want and repeat.
- Dreams can change, and that’s ok.
- As you learn more about the industry you could learn about other opportunities
- As you go, your goals may just get bigger.
- Always do what is right for you.