When Doug Gulotty, the President and CEO of Wilber National Bank, considers the opportunities in finance for the "emerging workforce" he is very optimistic.

"As the product line the banks offer expands, the opportunities for people with good education, good writing skills and good math skills will expand as well. And as we become more complex, the 'back room work' that supports each of these sales and services individuals grows exponentially."

"This is a great time to enter the financial services industry. It has plenty of upside potential for anyone with a little bit of ambition and a lot of work ethic."

According to Gulotty, the growth of automation in banking has produced clear standards for entry level employees.

"There's an expectation that you'll be able to manage a keyboard, express yourself using Word and Excel spreadsheets, and navigate the graphic user interfaces that seem to separate you from the actual servers that are doing the work. In the absence of that ability, you'd find yourself lost. You have to be able to accept the intuitive instruction of a graphic user interface."

Equally, if not more important, are customer service skills.

"They are probably the single most important skill set we should hire for in every position," Gulotty declares.

"The first skill set is the ability to listen and to be attentive. The second would be to accept that information from that customer, vendor or co-worker and put it into a context of changing variables."

"Customer service is not a matter of putting out a cookie-cutter response. It's about taking that information in, taking the time to think about it, and then applying it to very disparate circumstances to arrive at a mutually satisfying conclusion."

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