Daniel Jacobs, the former chief executive of 1st Metropolitan Mortgage, is keeping his hands in the branching game with the launch of Pro Mortgage Bankers Solutions and the new BranchMatch process.
The startup's website says the company aims to match branch managers with the "right home for the remainder of their careers in the mortgage industry."
Jacobs found that employee-employer fit elusive while with 1st Metropolitan, one of the largest branching firms. His recruiting team at the Charlotte, N.C., company, which he left in 2010, got plenty of leads for branch managers, but there was very little pull-through.
In fact, Jacobs said, 90% of the leads were bad fits for 1st Metropolitan. But he realized they would have been fine candidates for plenty of other companies.
That's where Pro Mortgage Bankers Solutions (also of Charlotte) comes in. Its website, PMBS.net, explains the BranchMatch process, including an online job-seeker application that Jacobs called the "compatibility questionnaire."
On the other side of the equation, Pro Mortgage currently represents about six lenders. Jacobs noted that each has a slightly different profile of what they are looking for. His company's job, he said, is to find the job seeker who best fits that profile.
Jacobs said there's "a good enough level of diversity" among his clients, so instead of finding 10% a new home, Pro Mortgage should find 70%.
His team includes a group of recruiters he has worked with for as long as 10 years. Each member has experience as an originator and a branch manager and has been involved in corporate management of a branching company.
Originators get started with Pro Mortgage through a program called MemberAccess. A membership is not required for an initial assessment. There is an informal discussion to see if the company has a lender who might be a good cultural fit, Jacobs said.
At that point, if the job seeker decides to continue on, he or she needs to join MemberAccess. Membership lasts for six months and is "moderately priced," the website said.
He said the services provided for MemberAccess members include a criminal background check, credit check, business planning advice and assembling the application and lender-required documentation. This allows the lender to fast-track the due diligence on the candidate.
Pro Mortgage, which was founded in December, is structured to meet the needs of the lender rather than for the ease of the recruiter, Jacobs said.
He said he can't see the company ever working for more than 10 to 12 lenders. This will allow it to have some overlap between lenders but still be able to emphasize their differences to find the ideal match. The goal, Jacobs said, is to create "good matches that stick for the long term."
Branching companies pay a fee to Pro Mortgage to handle the outsourcing of their job recruiting function, the website said.
Jacobs said this type of service is crucial now. With the Federal Reserve loan officer compensation rule to take effect April 1, he said, there could be more voluntary turnover in mortgage jobs this year than in recent years.
