After 11 years with Bank of America, I decided to make a change. Back in April of this year, I received a phone call from a headhunter asking me if I would be interested in talking to him about a leadership role at Charles Schwab. I was referred to him by some others I have worked with previously and thought that I would be a great fit for this company. I said, “sure, I’d be interested in hearing about this position, let’s schedule some talk to talk about it.
Up until this point I hadn’t been looking for a new position, although I was starting to think I would start looking sooner than later. There were a few things I wasn’t happy with at the bank; including the fact that I was underpaid for the work I was doing and I was also asked to recently go back to the office a few days a week. I was willing to work for less money, knowing I didn’t have the commute and I had the flexibility that comes from working at home. With those two concerns top of mind for me, I decided to pursue the opportunity at Schwab and begin the interview process.
I had seven interviews in the course of three months. They are building out the staffing team so it has created some opportunities that didn’t previously exist. I was very impressed with everyone that I spoke with. The downside is that I need to commute to an office in North Phoenix on a full time basis for the first couple of months. After that, I will have the flexibility to work from home. The upside is that it is significantly more money than I was making at the bank.
An offer finally came through for me, in the middle of July, for the Sr. Staffing Manager for Talent Attraction and Campus recruiting. I will be starting on August 8th.
It was a very surreal feeling to put in my two week notice at the bank. I had a very candid conversation with my executive who asked if he could try to retain me. He wanted to get back to me because he needed a day to see what he could do. I knew they weren’t going to match my comp and I would have been surprised if they came back with a counter offer at al. Of course they didn’t. My manager said he couldn’t get anything approved that he felt I could get excited about enough to stay.
Several days later the announcement was made to my peers. I was sent many positive notes of encouragement and other congratulatory messages. It was a good feeling to see that my peers were interested in what I was doing. Shortly after that I told my team, in what would be my last team call, that I was leaving the company. I think they were absolutely shocked. A couple of them cried, a couple others said nice things, and others said nothing but called me about an hour later after it all sunk in. I was really moved when I got calls from five of my nine recruiters who asked if they could follow me to Schwab. They were willing to take any position to remain on my team. Some of these recruiters have been with the company 11 and 18 years respectfully and they were willing to leave to stay with me. I felt very honored. It was really nice to hear that my efforts as a leader have paid off and I was able to gain followership in a short period of time with this team and keep it strong enough that they would leave. I always said that that the hardest part of leaving would be leaving the daily interactions with the people I work with and that turned out to be the truth. Frankly, I don’t think it’s actually sunk in yet for me either.
I will miss pinging with Heather the most. She and I have worked together since the beginning and have worked very closely together over the years. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for her to make a change in the near future also.
As for now, I will go start a new chapter in my career and hope it was the right choice. I’m on to new adventure!
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