It's Official!
Drum roll please. In this election season we’ve officially selected our Vice President of Unbanking. We put the ballots out, reviewed the applicant qualifications, considered our vote carefully and ultimately unanimously selected the new VP who will lead the state of Connex into the next era of Unbanking.
Enough with election coverage – I’m excited to welcome this new addition to our Marketing team. Shortly I’ll have all sorts of updates on what we’re having the VP do, what community events she’s able to have a presence at and the insights she’s gaining into the elusive “younger market.” But here are the (rather surprising) things I learned during the process:
- Very few people dress up for interviews anymore. I’m not even talking about full suits, I’m talking about things that barely scrape by to be considered non-beach attire. It wasn’t necessarily a factor for these interviews as they are college students and this is semi-relaxed internship, but none-the-less employment coordinators certainly aren’t sending any messages about attire selection. I found it interesting if not important.
- All but the student we selected struggled when we said “Tell us something you’re passionate about or have excitement for.” What?? Did we just throw them off guard and they weren’t able to piece together anything that resembled a response? Were they scared to answer truthfully since it was a job interview? In any case, I was looking for them to show their enthusiasm level over something that didn’t relate school or credit unions so I could get a sense of who they are. I was shocked how hard it was for most.
- Most schools in the area don’t have an internship requirement prior to graduation. I thought that was pretty close to mandatory these days. Regardless, I also learned most hadn’t done internships at all, and most were beginning their senior years. I started interning when I was a sophomore. Not only did I learn more during those experiences than I ever learned in a classroom, I learned a lot about the things I didn’t want to do in my career that helped guide my path for post-college career choices.
While these observations may not tie directly to credit unions attracting this group as members, it certainly helps me understand them as potential employees. I always contest that attracting the next generation of credit union employees is at least as crucial as attracting the next generation of members (and a couple of my fellow NTCUE competitors are focusing their projects on human resource-related elements.) Do these observations help us understand they might not be worthy candidates, or do they help us gain insight we can use to attract them (like casual dress codes, the promise of the fulfilling work they’ll be doing in the credit union industry that will give them something they can feel passion toward and the experience they didn’t get in school but will need in the real world?”)
Have you had similar interview experiences? Maybe you’ve seen the exact opposite? Let me know what you’re encountering out there in the “real world.”
Amy
Regional Finalist – Northeast
