For those of you that don't know, I spent almost four years in California selling loans; three of which were fiscally the best years of my life (by far) and one of which was the worst.
Since getting laid off by Countrywide in July of 2008 I have been exceptionally leery of any kind of Loan Officer (LO) job. Most of them out there are 100% commission and the nature of the mortgage biz is such that it invariably takes 30-60 days to see a commission paycheck from the day you start working, and I haven't had the cash reserves necessary (or seen an opportunity I liked enough) to give it a run.
But something has changed; about a week ago a good friend turned me on to an ad he saw in Careerbuilder about a LO position. Turns out it's for a major bank. Citigroup, in fact. Yes, that Citigroup; the second largest financial institution in America and third largest in the world. I had my telphone pre-interview on Monday and my first real interview today.
During my interview I find out that Citi has their retention division located right here in Ann Arbor, MI; "retention" meaning that the only thing they focus on is refinancing current Citi clients. Finally, the gig starts off with a really solid base pay, unlimited overtime opportunity and a commission structure that puts most LOs back in a tax bracket not far where where I used to be not too long ago.
Are you fucking kidding me? The best job I've ever had in my entire life was selling loans for Ameriquest, when I was part of their Portfolio Retention (PR) division located in Sacramento...basically doing this exact same job. I'd probably still be there today if I hadn't learned that PR's closing (and my being laid off) was imminent back in late 2006. I went job hunting that November and PR ended up closing it's doors three months later, laying off over a thousand LOs with no notice.
So somehow it just so happened that two years later I moved back to this little midwestern town--not because of any job or career opportunity, but because I love it here--and come to find out that less than ten miles from my house is the hub one of the world's major financial instititutions that specializes in one of the few things on earth that A.)I really like, B.)Am extraordinarily good at, and C.)Can get paid (well) to do.
The interview went well. I'll keep y'all posted but I'm mentally swimming right now...this whole damn thing just feels serendipitious. Cheers, all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sweet dude! good luck, you get the job Ill get you a beer! then you can get me the rest! lol
ReplyDelete