SEPTEMBER 1, 2000
HIRING LINE
Recruiting Q&A: FleetBoston Financial's John Allen | "There's not a place for stars," warns the bank's staffing chief. "It's a great collaborative environment"
| FleetBoston Financial, created by the merger last year of Fleet Financial Group and BankBoston, is the nation's eighth-largest financial-services company, with more than $185 billion in assets. Its retail offices stretch from Maine to Pennsylania, and the company is aggressively expanding overseas as well as online.
Apart from commercial and industrial lending, FleetBoston offers investment-banking services through its subsidiary BancBoston Robertson Stephens and operates the discount brokerage Quick & Reilly. Recently, Business Week Online's Jennifer Gill spoke with John L. Allen, FleetBoston's director of recruiting and staffing, about hiring practices since the merger. Here are edited excerpts of that conversation:
Q: How has the merger affected recruiting efforts?
A: In some [lines of] business that were being reshaped, there was a point where the marketplace was trying to establish what was going to be the resulting impact or business focus. There was some confusion. In some cases, it caused a little turbulence that the recruits said: Gee, I don't know if this is stable enough. We have quickly worked to get that cleared up, to be pointed [with recruits] in comparing what's really going on [at the company] vs. perception.
Q: What professional positions are most in demand?
A: Most are related to specific lines of business, and there's a number of areas that are growing. We're recruiting for industry banking, which focuses on our national upper-middle market and major corporate clients. The private-client business, which is wealth management, is a significant growth area. In many regions of the country, our asset-based lending and leasing lines of business are going through some active refocusing in the marketplace.
There are also a number of businesses that are improving, expanding, and developing e-commerce initiatives. Quite frankly, some people think of Fleet as a regional company with a banking focus. But it's really a lot more. The banking side, what would be traditional retail-consumer banking, represents under 20% of revenue.
Q: How many new hires do you make in a typical month?
A: Throughout the company, for mid- to upper-level professional positions, it could be 150 to 200.
Q: What qualifications are you looking for in applicants?
A: We don't always look for financial-service backgrounds. What we're looking for are people who are operating at a leadership level in their respective area. Particularly with Fleet going through so much relative to the merger...we need people who have been through change and can lead change.
FleetBoston is a company that will give you the tools and the autonomy, but you're expected to produce. There's not a place for stars. It's a great collaborative environment...where people are expected to own their work and be responsible for their work.
Q: What common mistakes do you see applicants make?
A: People, particularly if they're coming in at mid or senior levels, need to do their homework. There's a lot that can be found out about a particular line of business or even a hiring manager, let alone the company, on the Internet and through analyst research. They have to come in prepared to talk about what this company is, where it has been, and more importantly, where it's going.
What would concern me is someone who's looking to move for move's sake, if they don't have a higher bar on their own movement and really say [to themselves]: Listen, does this truly make sense for me? I think it separates a strong candidate from [the rest].
Q: Speaking of which, how do you find strong candidates?
A: First and foremost is through networks of the hiring people or business partners in the company, because they know who their colleagues are in the competitive universe. Then we use different databases that have been developed for us or that we have on our own. We also use executive-search firms and placement firms.
Q: What advice would you give to MBA grads?
A: We do a lot of MBA recruiting for a number of businesses. I would want to be sure that the position you start with is one that gives you significant opportunity to grow through tools, involvement with leaders, and being able to get hands on. More importantly, [there should be] a view that if, after three or five years, they see something in another area, they can move around the company and not have to leave to grow their career. Say they come in to the debt-capital-markets area, they could look at private equity [or] at investment banking. They could look at going to Asia or Latin America or Europe.
Q: So you encourage movement within the company.
A: We do. And we'll be doing more of it, frankly, for two reasons. One, it improves retention. Second, if you bring people into some of these areas, they know the company. They bring [to the new job] a particular experience or level of capability. Their time to get into gear is a whole lot better. It allows us to grow talent for the future. We can do some succession planning, which is another area where we will be stepping up our activities in the weeks and months ahead.
Q: Is there potential for international assignments?
A: Yes. In Latin America, we are a dominant financial-service company, particularly in the southern cone and growing in the northern cone. In Asia we're growing our debt-capital-markets capability. We're looking to bring some of our investment banking and possibly private equity there. The same [goes] with Europe, both in the Continent as well as in London.
Q: Do you recruit particularly for overseas assignments?
A: We haven't done that yet, but I see it coming.
Q: What's your overall outlook on recruiting today?
A: It's as competitive as it has ever been. I don't see it changing because everyone is looking for that best athlete out there.
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