Pros

US Bank is a great place to work at if you are looking to move up the ladder when it comes to banking. The training is well established, and you do get recognition if you are really an aggressive sales person.

Cons

There are a lot more "downsides" to US Bank, then "upsides". I have always prided myself on being an excellent worker, and somebody that treats his customers with the utmost respect and dignity. However, within the type of environment that I was exposed to (because it could be different at other branches/locations), it was very difficult to keep your cool, and much less WORK. I was located at a branch where the expectations were really HIGH, but the area didn't really help meet expectations. We were surrounded by a retirement community where 98% of our customers were above the age of 55. Even though this was basically a FACT, US Bank still held us to the same goals as other branches. We have to sell auto loans (old people don't need cars), HELOC & HEIL (old people don't owe money, and don't want to owe any money), Credit Cards (old people HATE credit cards), etc. These pressures really made this job flat out SUCK. I have worked in a traditional environment, where selling was (of course) very important, but it wasn't my jobs MAIN PRIORITY. US Bank is a numbers bank, therefore, selling is KING. It doesn't matter if you are a banker, senior banker, assistant branch manager (like me), or whatever your position might be....Your goal is SELL!

I seriously felt at one point like if i was a used car sales man standing at a BANK LOT. US Bank tells you during training, "don't sell products to customers they don't need!", however, this is damn nearly impossible if you need to meet your goals! I at one point was literally putting people in reserve lines & premier lines (lines of credit that could be used as OD Protection), without them even knowing about it! These lines gave me points, and if i would ask a good amount of my customers if they needed it they would simply (and kindly) say, "NO".

By the way, this all took place at an in-store location. For those of you who don't know what an IN-STORE is, it's basically a US Bank branch located inside of a supermarket. I would assume that the traditional locations might have different goals, and a manager is a manager, and an ABSM is an ABSM, and a teller is a teller, etc. etc. I say this because in the in-store you do a little bit of EVERYTHING. I was a teller, a banker, an assistant branch manager, a senior banker.....to me, this was unbearable. I had to juggle 3-4 things at a time...and OPERATIONS is always breathing down your damn neck! Which, needless to say, does not make the job anymore comfortable.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management needs to realize that we can't go about things pretending like everything is perfectly fine, and drill people when they are not meeting their numbers! It is amazing how senior management would ask about loans, like if the economy was BOOMING!

Also, please don't hold every damn branch to the same expectations....do some research, and check out your demographics!

Thanx!