National City Reviews

Pros

opportunities for advancement, training, time off and paid holidays. hours are excellent and work/life balance is stronly encouraged.

Cons

dealing with customers regarding things beyond your control (policies & procedures)

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the great work! This is a great place to work.

Pros

The pay was very good on the base salary.

Cons

The payout on the investement side was miniscule, between 3-15%. The management is poorly structured with a divide between the investment and bank side and the LFCs caught in between. Some of the Branch Managers have the old mentality that you selling investments is taking away from their deposit base. There is a lack of a good support system. The branch managers spend 75% of their time our of the office on "business calls." When the branch manager is in the office, they refuse to actually do any work, such as opening accounts. I actually had multiple ocassions when I was in the break room eating lunch, and the branch manager came and got me to have me open an account, even though they were doing nothing. The disciplinary techniques are very strange. Your manager will not say anything to you about how you are doing, but then will write you up for something that they never got an explanation for, until the write-up is occurring, and when there is a completely logical explanation, they don't care.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually ask questions before writing somebody up, and don't write people up based on hearsay. Have some integrity.

Pros

Current 401k match 1.15:1, may be changing after PNC merger complete
Working with the public and establishing relationships with a reputable company
Great Product set

Cons

Currently going through a merger with PNC and a lot is unknown
Pressure from management to prioritize their needs while completing regular duties
Lending Guidlines are very strict
High Turnover

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate with lower level employees, they are the heart of your organization.

Pros

Plenty of opportunities for advancement. Promotes from within.

Cons

The pay doesn't seem to be the best, and not most qualified necessarily in supervisory roles (I have never applied to be a supervisor just an observation).

Advice to Senior Management

Merit increases should be based on merit

Pros

410k match, health benefits, average vacation time, decent flexibility,

Cons

management has the leadership skills of a gerbil. Raises are almost non-existent. You get less of a raise than inflation. You never know when they are going to fire you because they set ridiculously high goals and then most people don't meet them so they can pick and choose who to fire. Upper management could care less about you as a person or for any career development. This company just passes down work all the way to the bottom. Senior management passes to vice presidents, who then pass on to people who work for them. Therefore people in the middle don't do anything but dish out work then monitor you working.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more conservative. The reason why you had to sell was because you were going to go bankrupt from all the risky loans and outrageous rates. Stop pushing so hard for sales and do it the right way.

Pros

Positives:

The people at NCC are truly best in class. Even though NCC is a big company 30K+, there is a close nit community feel. Additionally, meeting with upper level management is practice that is encouraged.

Negatives:
Considering that NCC Is a close nit environment company, your advancement is highly weighted on who you know and who knows you and your abilities.

Cons

NCC needs to do a better job at integrating their customer data. Extracting accurate data about customers and market segments can be very difficult and frustrating. There are multiple systems that are not linked.

The company was recently taken over my PNC. Therefore, I am not sure how many jobs will be cut as a result.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be affair to make a decision.

Pros

The corporation has a lot of great products for customers.

Cons

The bank is in the process of being acquired by PNC. I was an employee that was a part of the merger of MidAmerica Bank into National City in Feb. 2008. Now, we are going through another merger and acquisition, where the close of the sale (to PNC) will be complete by Dec. 31, 2008.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure that you do extensive checks on Branch Management. While things are always "peachy" when executive management visits the branch, the moral of the branch is not always what it appears to be.

Pros

The bank had great potential before being sold, with a great retail presence throughout the midwest and a great future. New leadership had been added to the bank recently but never had the chance to add more to the bottom line. Teh people at NCC are wonderful and very talented.

Cons

The bank is being sold, so a lot of uncertainty now. If all goes well with the merger then the new bank will be one of the top 5 banks in the coutry with lots of opportunities. It you join NCC now you'll have to deal with very well with uncertainty.

Advice to Senior Management

Make staffing decisions quickly

Pros

They have great benefits. $1.15 for every dollar you put in with your 401(k). You will not get a match until you have been there for a year though. My base salary was pretty good. It was higher than all of the other offers I had. That is pretty much about it.

Cons

High turnover. Don't think that is a good thing. It is a bad thing. If people above you are quitting a lot then there is a reason for that. Very dishonest way of doing business. As an LFC they only let you sell two investment products: mutual funds and annuities. There are times that it is impossible to do what is right for the client. A lot of LFC would be dishonest and just put everyone into annuties because it pays the highest commission. I'll give you an example. If you get a 100k rollover and put them in mutual funds your revenue would be about $2500.00. If you put them into annuities then it is $5000.00. The first month I walked in the door my quota was $9000 in revenue a month. If you have been in the sales business before then you know how hard it is just to get a 100k rollover. So it is easy to slip into being dishonest and pressing annuities onto everyone even though a CD might be more appropriate.

There are very dishonest people above you that will give you dishonest sales tactics. They will try to tell you to scare the customers about the FDIC and they will then feel frightened enough to buy an annuity. If you are a dishonest person then this is the right job for you. The average person makes about 43k a year. If you are super dishonest and very organized then you can make between 50 and 60k a year.

Don't plan on moving up anytime soon. Once you are in this role you are pretty much stuck. The next promotion would be a retail financial advisor. They make the big bucks and don't do much work. Everytime an LFC makes a sale they make even more in commission. They make more than you do! They are supposed to be a support role. If you have a good one then great. If you have a bad one then you are screwed! These people make a lot of money so there is very little turnover unlike all of the other positions at NCC. You have to wait until that one person retires or dies before you get to move up. Then you have to compete with a bunch of other dishonest LFCs that have been racking up the revenue by selling annuities to people that don't even understand them.

Advice to Senior Management

Let the LFCs sell more than just annuities and mutual funds. It is impossible to do what is right for the client. If someone is selling annuities to everyone that walks in the door then they need to be looked at close to see what kind of sales practices they are using. $9000 in revenue each month is way too high when you first walk in the door.

Pros

For people with families, National City was a great workplace. In my experience, they were flexible in terms of giving employees the time off needed to address family issues or obligations.

Cons

It is very difficult to get fired. This means that people with little talent or ability can drain resources as stronger employees struggle to improve the company. In addition, employees with potential are not encouraged in career or job growth because the squeaky wheels are being attended to. Communication from top to bottom is lacking. Lower-level employees are always the last to know about company developments or changes - the media usually reports the story before company leaders bother to communicate with employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire (or promote) managers who have experience and strong intuition regarding communication and leadership.