In this blog post, I’ll show you how to effectively convey the skills and credibility you need for a corporate banking job in your cover letter, based on my diverse experience in teller and security roles.
How you grew up
“My parents worked in banks for many years”
My father and mother both worked as bankers for almost 20 years. They met each other at the same company, got married, and had me. As an only child, I knew from a young age that I wanted to provide for my parents. Of course, our family environment was not difficult because they both worked, but I wanted to give them a richer life through my own efforts. My mother and father were worried about their old age because the life expectancy of bankers is getting shorter, and I studied hard to ease their worries.
Since high school, my goal has always been to be a banker. I saw my father and mother doing the same job all my life, and it was nice to see that. They both had no greed, and they had a lot of knowledge about finance and finances because they worked at a bank, so they saved up little by little and managed their finances and pensions, and they lived a simple life. I wanted to live without much greed like my parents, so I decided to study finance while aiming to become a banker. After graduating from high school, I prepared for college with the goal of majoring in economics, and I was accepted into college.
In college, I studied not only the principles of economics but also financial economics at a four-year economics department. Since it was something I had always wanted to study, I completed the curriculum with interest and applied for courses enthusiastically, so I had a well-planned college life. Along the way, my parents helped me in choosing courses and clubs. Both of my parents are also economics majors, so they were supportive of my choice and tried to give me a lot of advice. I followed in their footsteps and became an economics student and gathered information to get a job in a bank, and with their support and information, I was able to work in a bank. Without their support and advice, it would have been difficult for me to grow and achieve my goals.
Career Highlights
“Working steadily at Shinhan Bank.”
Since I first started working at Shinhan Bank as an entry-level employee, I have been with the same company in a variety of roles. This time, when I applied for a position in Corporate Banking at your company, I had to make a new application because I changed departments and tasks, and I also changed branches. However, since I have been working at Shinhan Bank for more than five years, I received a recommendation letter from the branch manager of another department, and I believe that in the new branch, I will be able to adapt to the organization faster by using my experience.
I first started working at Shinhan Bank when I was in college. I worked as a security guard and was in charge of basic security tasks during my college days, which was neither my major nor a way to learn about banking, but it was an important opportunity to understand the organization and the company. As a security guard, I dealt directly with customers who came to the bank, and I really got to know the needs of those customers, and I got to see the overall organization, and I got to know what each employee does, and I got to know what the branch manager or the assistant branch manager does, and so on. So when I graduated from college, I started working for that organization as a general office worker, and I was still not in the banking business, but I was supporting the general banking business.
After working as an office worker for more than two years, I was promoted to the administrative staff of the branch. As an administrative staff, I was in charge of overseeing office workers and managing other members of the organization, such as security guards who had previously worked there. I adjusted the salary system and improved the system, and I found it rewarding. As a result of my hard work, I was hired as a banker soon after, and I gradually got closer to working with my major. I mainly did teller work, such as opening accounts, managing accounts, and managing cards, and the process of constantly changing tasks in the organization I was working in was very helpful to me. It shortened the time to adapt to the work and helped me grow faster with the help of the people I worked with. I applied for a job at your organization after being recommended by the same organization, and I believe that corporate-related work will be the most suitable work for me.
Achievement experience
“Never giving up on a challenge”
When I went to college, I spent about a year retaking the SAT twice. My original goal was to study economics, but by the time I graduated from high school, I was accepted into a different program. So I didn’t enroll in college to get into the program I wanted, but I retook the SAT right away, and I had to take the challenge of not giving up to get into the economics program. So I took the challenge, and I was able to improve my scores on the second SAT by an average of one grade level from the previous SAT.
My original scores were 1, 2, and 2 in language, math, and foreign language, respectively, which was not enough to get into the economics department of the university of my choice. In the second SAT, I scored 1 in all major subjects, and with an average score of 1, I was able to get into the university of my choice. I went to Sungkyunkwan University, Department of Economics, and I was especially happy to be a fellow alumnus because my father graduated from the same university. In college, I tried to enjoy college life less than my peers by playing less and focusing on my studies because I came in a year late. I also tried to develop leadership skills by always taking the lead as an elder brother and a big brother when performing tasks. In this way, I have the power to positively overcome situations that could be called setbacks and turn them into fulfilling experiences.
Creative thinking
“Host a movie event at the library”
I worked at the library as a work-study student in college. I applied to be a work-study student from my freshman year and continued to work until I graduated in my senior year. During this time, I worked in the library, participated in various events that took place in the library, and participated in the event planning process. I realized that there are more departments working together to run a library than you might think. There’s the basic operations department that handles checking out and returning items, but behind that, there’s a department that handles office administration and a finance department that manages the budget. And then there’s the student welfare department, which was planning to organize events for students’ cultural life in the library.
In the process, we gathered students’ opinions on what kind of events they wanted. As a working student, I conducted publicity activities to promote the contents of the survey and collected opinions by handing out questionnaires. As a result, the majority of students wanted to have cultural performances such as plays, performances, movies, and musicals in the library. I summarized the results reflecting the students’ opinions, submitted them to the Student Welfare Department, and received a budget to organize the movie event. The working students and the team leaders of the library operation department gathered together to have a meeting to organize the movie event, and as a result of the meeting, we chose some of the latest movies to organize the event. During this process, I came up with a creative idea: instead of using a classroom to show the movie, I suggested using the lobby of the library and using white tents that could be lowered from the top to the bottom. The advantage of these white tents was that they could become a single screen, allowing people to see the movie from different angles. My idea was accepted, and the movie festival was held using the tents, and it was a fun event.
