Beyond the Banking Bench: Time to Hire from External Talent Pools?
The tight labor market continues to hit community and regional banks hard, especially in the Mid-Atlantic. As reported in American Banker, even institutions that avoided the worst of post-pandemic turnover now find experienced candidates harder to come by, particularly for branch and operational roles that once attracted a steady stream of applicants.
The disconnect is most evident in part-time positions. Banks depend on flexible staffing for frontline service, deposit operations, administrative support, and customer experience roles. Yet traditional talent pipelines (retirees, students, and early-career workers with basic service experience) are no longer reliable. That reality has led many executive teams to ask a startling question: Is the banking industry ready to look outside its own walls for talent?
The Case for Expanding the Talent Funnel
Recent research from CCG Catalyst found that banks hiring senior leaders from outside the financial sector saw a 97 percent success rate. While this study focuses on executives (not part-time staff), it reveals a critical insight: the banking industry may underestimate how well nonbanking professionals can adapt, contribute, and even thrive.
Other industry reporting supports this argument. A PCBB analysis found that 86 percent of financial services employees consider workplace flexibility “important” or “essential,” a preference that makes part-time work appealing to a broader, more diverse segment of the workforce. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal continues to document the migration of younger talent toward tech-aligned fields, leaving banks competing with industries that often offer more flexibility and less regulation.
Against this backdrop, restricting recruitment to candidates with prior banking experience is a self-inflicted constraint. Banks have long argued that the work is too specialized for outsiders, but the industry’s increasing reliance on people skills, digital literacy, and process discipline challenges that assumption.
A Useful Lens: What Yates Believes Makes a Good Banker
Few voices illustrate this more clearly than Endeavor Bank’s Dan Yates, the longtime California industry leader whose tenure includes guidance of numerous financial institutions.
Yates’ industry philosophy reveals a deep belief that the best bankers are made, not found. In his Banking+ interview, he emphasizes empathy, curiosity, and a willingness to be coached. His approach to developing new bankers is hands-on and relationship-focused. “We accompany our new generation of bankers on calls,” he explained, describing a model where technical underwriting and emotional intelligence training are taught side-by-side. In Yates’ view, success comes when a banker earns a business owner’s trust, makes thoughtful introductions, and helps solve real operational challenges.
None of these qualities is unique to the financial sector. Workers from hospitality, healthcare administration, service-oriented retail, logistics, education, and nonprofit management often arrive with these skills already well-developed. Yates’ belief in training and mentorship, rooted in his own early-career experience, strengthens the argument that talented outsiders can absorb regulatory and procedural knowledge with the right guidance.
Where External Talent Fits Naturally
Several institutions experimenting with external hiring report that part-time roles are a logical entry point. Positions in customer service, branch support, documentation, data verification, marketing coordination, and administrative project work align more closely with skills found across other industries than with specialized banking expertise. Workers with strong interpersonal skills or structured operational experience often transition smoothly.
This trend mirrors what HR advisory firm Lattice noted in its examination of banks adopting “alternative talent models,” where adaptable, process-driven employees from other fields step into well-defined roles that can be learned through structured onboarding.
For roles tied to credit analysis, BSA/AML oversight, or treasury operations, the stakes are understandably higher. Banks must be more deliberate in onboarding nonindustry candidates. Yet even in these functions, some institutions use part-time or project roles as testing grounds, pairing new hires with experienced officers to gradually build competency.
Success appears less tied to prior industry exposure than to the bank’s training infrastructure and cultural philosophy, a point Yates demonstrates repeatedly in his own leadership journey.
A More Strategic Mindset for Bank Leaders
Rather than a wholesale shift, what the industry needs is a measured recalibration, an observation made by Independent Banker. A thoughtful hiring strategy that welcomes capable applicants from outside the sector (without diluting compliance or risk standards) allows banks to grow their workforce without compromising their identities.
Banks that start small, adding a handful of external hires in low-risk, part-time roles, often find integration hurdles smaller than expected. Shadowing, structured mentorship, and an internal “Banking 101” curriculum create an environment where outsiders learn quickly. Once these hires are in place, leadership teams can compare performance, review error rates, evaluate customer feedback, and adjust.
What emerges is a clearer understanding of what constitutes true “banking experience.” Increasingly, it is not years spent in a branch but the ability to communicate, solve problems, handle ambiguity, and earn trust. Yates often observes that the human side of banking (listening well, offering meaningful support, guiding clients through uncertainty) is what separates strong contributors from average ones. These strengths are not exclusive to traditional banking résumés.
A Moment of Opportunity
The pressures of the modern labor market make the industry’s old hiring assumptions untenable. Banks cannot afford to overlook strong talent simply because that talent comes from a hospital, a classroom, a logistics center, or a hotel front desk. As reported across the financial press, the most adaptable organizations are learning that their next standout employee may come from across town, not necessarily across the banking street.
Coupled with leaders like Yates, who have built cultures that reward emotional intelligence, relationship-building, and a willingness to learn, banks can confidently broaden their hiring lens without compromising the rigor or reliability that define the industry.
For many institutions (especially those struggling to fill part-time or flexible roles), opening the doors to nonbanking talent isn’t a risk. It’s a strategic correction that may prove essential to building the next generation of bankers.
