The following is a transcript of my interview with Jason Buchanan of the North Carolina Credit Union located in Cullowhee, North Carolina
1. What is your official title:
• Credit Union Lending Officer
2. Could you describe a typical day at the credit union?
• A typical day fluctuates at the credit union. On a daily bases we can work with our customers with personal loans, credit cards, mortgages, or lending. Someone may walk in and want to join the credit union, or even buy a house; we then must switch our thinking and help them with this. We are here to take care of their needs from 8:30am to 5:30pm. We like to help our customers until it is time for us to lock up.
3. Tell me how you got started in this industry? And how did you work your way into becoming a lending officer?
• I first started out as a teller at the front desk. I obtained my job by an interview that occurred before the Cullowhee branch of this credit union originally opened. I was seeking full time work when this door opened for me in my life, so I took it. I was a teller for three years, and then moved into lenders serving, and now here I am before you. Lending was very new to me, especially since I do not have a college degree in finances, or any type of degree at all. I just started working and with time I began to get the hang of things. I have only done about 5 mortgages at this point in my career. Hopefully in five years I will have a lot more experience at it.
4. Could you give me some examples to illustrate the challenges you faced starting as a credit union lending officer with no experience and little college education?
• The challenges I face getting to this point of being a lending officer is my education. I am currently at a stalemate in my career because I don’t have the necessary education. I now must obtain a four-year degree if I wish to move along any further.
5. What kind of formal education and additional specialized training would you recommend that a person should acquire to enter into a profession like yours?
• As I said before, I don’t have a four-year college degree, so I am going through the process now of obtaining all of the education I need so that I can have the potential to get promoted in our credit union structure. But I do have a two-year degree from a bible institution; with this I am a pastor for a small local church. I also have a fishing wild life degree from a community college. I will use these degrees to hopefully transfer into Western Carolina University and get me a degree. The credit union now requires you to have a four-year degree or college transfer degree.
6. When someone joins your team, how do you orient him or her as a member of your team? And how are things going at this branch of your credit union? Are you hiring? Downsizing? Staying consistent? In terms of workforce that is.
• When someone joins, we have what is called “New Employee Training.” Which is usually held off site in Raleigh. You are in training there for several days at head quarters. But we no longer use this model, people who will work here, now go through training in Asheville, North Carolina. This training is lead by an instructor that teaches you the basics of working at a credit union. They teach you how things work in a credit union, as well as what is expected of you. You have manuals to be read, along with an employee handbook. You then must discuss these books in your training. This training last for two weeks, four days a week. But the credit union only hires people when there has been some type of turnover at actual branches of the credit union in the state, and positions are open. There are currently no open positions in this branch of the credit union. When there are, the jobs are posted online, and you can tell at which branch they are at and the exact title for the position. When you are first hired, you are closely monitored and shadowed until you have become fully acquainted with our ways of conducting business, or until you are comfortable. You also do a lot of cross training at the Cullowhee branch, to better fulfill our needs in this branch.
7. How do you keep up with current events in your industry, and as a businessperson in general?
• We keep up with current events in our industry by staying abreast and up to date with policies and regulations. We get “force fed” through emails the information that they would like for us to be informed of. We receive credit union journals on top of emails. All information is filtered to us through our main office in Raleigh, North Carolina.
8. What are some problems that arise in your profession? When problems arise, how does your management team (or how do you) resolve them?
• There really are not many problems that arise in our particular credit union, mainly because we are in a very small town with very friendly people. But we do have frequent staff meetings to go over situations that could arise with a customer that could be a problem. In those situations you want to resolve it one on one as quietly as possible. If it doesn’t work, you then notify a supervisor and ask them to assist the situation. Again though, we really don’t have problems like that in this credit union or in this small town. And if you have a problem with a coworker, again you try to solve it as quietly as possible between the two of you. If that does not work, you then take it to management. We have to work together to solve all problems. This is definitely an environment where teamwork is crucial. We are not like a bank, where you work to meet quota on a monthly bases, so your not competing, nor are in in a stressful situation where you have to produce. Because we are a credit union, we don’t have quota, we just work to help our customers and send them to the best location where they can get help in the case that we cannot help them. We even send them to a bank for help from time to time if they are the ones that can help them the best.
9. How have the experiences that you have had during your entire career influenced the way you now work here in this credit union?
• Because of the great time I have had here thus far, I now see this as a career and not a job. So I am now pursuing the correct education so that I can try and work my way up the ranks of the credit union. I want to climb as high as I possibly can. With me being a pastor, this job is very supportive of that career and meshes well with it. I really like that about this job. It isn’t extremely stressful, and when you leave at the end of the day you leave your work here and it doesn’t go home with you, just pick it back up the next work day.
10. How do you motivate and reward people in this credit union?
• We motivate people in the credit union with yearly evaluations that can lead to a raise upon a positive evaluation. In the evaluation, this is your opportunity to discuss your job performance with your supervisor and their opportunity to let you know what they have observed. You then are offered a yearly raise in August if you walk out with a positive review. In our industry, this is called a merit raise, and the board of directors must approve it. This merit raise can be anywhere from 2-4%.
11. What advice would you give to someone who was considering a career in the credit union as a lending officer?
• The advice I would give to someone who wants to work in the credit union is that when you are dealing with this type of job, you are servicing the members and that is your upmost priority. One of the more enjoyable parts of the job is someone has a bad interest rate when they walk into our doors. We have the power to turn all of that around and help them out in their situation. We do this all and don’t get commission for it. So we are doing this for the benefit of our customers, and it has nothing to do with commission. It is done out of the kindness of my heart; it is a satisfying job to help people. Another thing about this job is that there are a lot of guidelines, and things change a lot in our business. So people should know that if you are going to work here you have to be on your toes and be ready for anything. One good thing to keep in mind in my line of work is the public has a bad taste in their mouth about the economy, so you have to reassure people when they come in to talk to you that you are here to help them and take care of them. You have to have a good perspective of your job. Let them know how you feel about your job, you can’t be afraid to tell them that, as well as you don’t get a bonus to help them, you just sincerely want to help them. If it doesn’t make sense to give you a loan because it will eventually hurt you, then we wont.
12. What is something unusual or out of the ordinary that has happened since you were working here?
• This bank actually got robbed in December of 2011 when I was working the front desk. The robber had a gun in his hand when he walked in and held us at gunpoint. Surprisingly after that, a lot did not change here with security. We actually opened back up that day in the afternoon, after we had a prolonged lunch break to give us all the opportunity to collect ourselves. The woman who was actually held at gunpoint was given the rest of the day off. I would like to add that we later found out it was a toy gun.
13. Anything else you would like to tell me?
• One common thing that people don’t know about a credit union is that we are not a bank; there is a difference between a credit union and bank. We don’t like to say no to anyone that comes in and ask for a loan. We counter a lot of loans for students, because they usually can’t qualify if they don’t have credit or a good enough job. So a lot of times we will counter a loan request to try and make it work. Our motto is “people helping people.” We don’t reject people off of credit score alone, or income alone, we look at several different factors. There are some lenders that if you don’t have a certain credit score they don’t approve you, that is why I make that point. And sometimes we may not be the best option for someone with perfect credit. We are better for someone that is in the middle. And we like to keep in mind that you never know why someone may be in his or her current predicament. They may have been sick, just got a divorce, or anything. We want to make sure that people can come here and we do all we can to help them out, we want people to get from us what they need.
