Just went through the Wells Fargo commercial banking AE interview for a relationship manager role in their middle market team. I know most people on here skew tech, but there are enough sales and commercial banking folks in this community that this might be useful.
The role was focused on building new relationships and growing existing book of business for mid-size companies ($50M-$500M revenue range). WF commercial banking is a serious enterprise sales motion, not transactional.
Process breakdown:
Phone screen with recruiter. They asked about my current book of business size, whether I had existing relationships in the target geography, and my experience with treasury management products. If you don't know what treasury management is at a high level (cash management, payables/receivables optimization, fraud controls), learn before you call. It's the product most RMs lead with.
First round with hiring manager. Behavioral heavy. Tell me about your biggest deal and how you brought it across the line. Tell me about a relationship you lost and what you'd do differently. How do you manage a pipeline when you have 80+ prospects at different stages. Classic enterprise sales interview content but framed in the banking context.
Presentation round. They gave me a mock prospect scenario: a manufacturing company doing $120M revenue, currently banking with a regional competitor. I had to present a relationship overview as if I were pitching them to switch. They specifically said they wanted to see how I'd position WF's capabilities, handle objections about switching costs, and show that I understood the client's business before trying to sell them something.
This is the round most candidates apparently fail. The ones who walk in with a generic bank pitch get dinged. They want to see that you've thought about the client's specific situation first.
Final panel. Met with the regional director and two peer RMs. More behavioral, more digging on past performance numbers. What were your metrics at your last role: new relationships opened, revenue generated, cross-sell ratios. Be ready to talk numbers confidently.
Comp: base around $95k for the relationship manager title in Denver, with significant variable upside tied to net new revenue. Total comp with a decent book could be $150-180k. Senior and managing director levels go meaningfully higher.
One thing I didn't see on any other posts: they explicitly asked whether I had a non-solicit agreement from my prior employer. Banks care a lot about this because the whole value of hiring an experienced RM is often the existing relationships they bring.