Welcome back to Lending Leadership: The Mortgage Pros.

With back-to-school season in full swing and college football kicking off, we started to reflect on one of the quirks of our profession: almost no one grows up aspiring to be a mortgage loan officer. The vast majority of us, ourselves included, stumbled into this industry rather than charting a deliberate course here. So, Tom and Dave got together (minus Robert this week—safe travels, Robert!) to have a candid conversation: What if there was an actual college program for aspiring loan officers? What would that look like, and how could it transform our industry?

Nobody announced on elementary school career day that it was their ambition to become a loan officer. Maybe that's why traditional education doesn't do a great job of actually preparing you for this field.

In this episode, we're asking a question: If you were to design a true college curriculum for mortgage originating, what would you teach? We brainstorm everything from technical skills (income calculation, economics, macro finance, variable income) to the soft skills that really make a great loan officer (sales, marketing, communications, modern technology like AI, and most importantly—psychology and understanding people). We also highlight the unique rewards of the career—autonomy, limiless income potential, the relationships you form—and asked why, given its benefits, being a loan officer remains such an under-the-radar choice for young adults.

Key takeaways:

1. No Standard Path to Becoming a Loan Officer: Almost nobody sets out to enter the mortgage business, but it’s a hidden gem with tremendous potential for those who find their way here—even if their degree is totally unrelated.
2. The Skills That Matter Most: While technical know-how (like income calculation and understanding macroeconomics) is important, some of the most vital skills are in psychology, communication, and sales. The best loan officers are those who can understand and effectively work with people.
3. Self-Education is Essential: Since traditional college doesn’t prepare you for this role, your willingness to seek out education—through books, online courses, industry coaching, and by modeling top performers—is critical to standing out and thriving.
4. The Value of Lifelong Learning: The landscape of mortgage lending is always evolving, with new technologies (like AI) and developing best practices. Those who continually hone their craft fare best, regardless of market cycles.
5. The Mortgage Career is a Hidden Opportunity: Despite its challenges and a lack of early-career visibility, being a loan officer offers flexibility, income potential, and job satisfaction that rivals or surpasses many more “traditional” professions—without the lengthy (or costly) advanced degrees.

If you’re a new loan officer, a student figuring out your future, or a seasoned pro looking to level up, we encourage you—put yourself “back to school.” The resources are all out there, and the commitment to learning never ends. If you’d like to connect or have questions about jumping into this rewarding field, reach out to us—we’re always here to help.

From Tom Mills and Dave Holland at Lending Leadership: The Mortgage Pros, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and join us next time for more industry insights!

Take care, everyone!

Robert, Tom, and Dave

As a mortgage loan officer, everybody just fell into it. You know, you go across, you know, there's, there's, there's. Every elementary school at some point is going to have career day and they're going to ask all the little kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? And almost nobody says a loan officer.

Almost no one do you know, I know one person who wouldn't be a loan officer when they grew up.

So the career of a loan officer. What if you actually went to school for that?

That'd be, that'd be interesting. Very helpful. Very helpful.

Let's talk a little bit about that today. Welcome to another episode of Lending Leadership, the Mortgage Pros. Tom Mills, one of your hosts, here with my partner, Dave Holland. Dave, how are we doing today?

Doing great, Doing great. Tom, what did you, would you major in college? Let's start there.

Finance. I was a finance major.

You had a better background than me. I majored in history and sociology.

So, yeah, yeah, I wanted to work. Not exactly Morgan or the crazy atmosphere. So kind of, kind of the next closest thing I would say. But, yeah, interesting topic. So we're, we're, we're without our, our partner in crime, Robert, today, traveling. And literally this topic was thrown together five minutes before we hopped on. Dave tried to back out of recording today, but true story, I had other plans for tomorrow and the show must continue. So here we are.

And, and what brought it up is, is everybody's back to school. You know, it's back to school season, kids are back, college is back, football's back, it's that time of year. And, and, you know, it's, it's something that's always bothering me, and I think, I feel like I've said it like three times in the last three months about this. Why don't, why doesn't anybody take this as a career? It's like as a mortgage loan officer. Everybody just fell into it. You know, you go across, you know, there's, there's, there's, every elementary school at some point is going to have career day, and they're going to ask all the little kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? And almost nobody says a loan officer.

Almost no one do. You know, I know one person who wouldn't be a loan officer when they grew up. One person.

I do, too. I do, too. And she's an awesome one, and she's.

A great loan officer.

She's been training for it her whole life, and it shows. So that's a great example of why we're here, I think, I think, Dave, because it' like nobody goes to school to be that, you know, so it's like I want to be an accountant. I want to be, you know, a teacher. I want to, you know, there's just, I, I think it's just not something that kids think about, but it's a really great career.

Yeah. I mean, loan. Being a loan officer is a great career. You can set your own hours, you can work as hard as you want. Your income is almost to a certain degree limitless for how big you, you want to scale. And I think a business to business, you know, because most of our customers are major referral sources, are realtors, and past customers is, is much easier. It's not like we're running the retail business.

Yeah.

So. Yeah, I mean, mortgage. You don't choose mortgages. Mortgages choose you. Well.

And it took virtually. Not only did it take no education, it really required no certain background, not even a whole lot of. Of training, you know, to kind of. At least when I came into the business, it was just, you know, you just kind of fall into this business and you, and you, you know, most places have to kind of figure it out.

You shadow someone. You learn from older loan officers. You learn from the processor complaining to you and about sloppy files. My first day, I got a phone, not even a cell phone. I got, I got an office phone. I got the FHA. Is it 4001? And I got Fanny and Freddie guides and list of people to call.

Yeah. You know, you start this business and there's not much training or tools given, but let's, let's say you, you know, from the time you were young, said I wanted to be a loan officer. You're, you go, you're, you know that these are the best loan officer universities and schools and colleges in the nation. You apply and you get accepted and, and, and you go to school and, and you know, what does that look like? Like if, if there was, if that was actually a degree, what, what do you think would be the, the relevant course curriculum topics, and what would have people come out of college trained, hungry and ready to be the best loan officers out there?

Well, number one, you need a certain personality test or type. So, you know, you get a personality test to make sure you're into sales. Because at the end of the day, I've always said we're in technical sales. So, you know, sales and marketing is a big aspect of our business. So like the core courses, you probably need basic algebra, algebra 1 and algebra 2, you need a heavy degree in communications and marketing and then maybe as a, as a side to the communications and marketing, social media marketing, now AI technology, because that all kind of blends in the marketing and a healthy dose of psychology. Because a lot of what we do is working with customers who are nervous. It's the biggest transaction of their life. There's a lot of emotions.

You have to set boundaries or people will just eat you alive. Sometimes those would be the big ones. And then, you know, a touch of, you need basic finance knowledge, macroeconomics, you know, with rates and what else? What am I missing, Tom?

I mean, it goes deep, you know, I mean, you know, I think your best loan originators out there, they, they've taken it upon themselves to learn a lot of things. So if we look at that, you know, what makes them great, you know, they're, they're experts to their customers, they can properly advise their customers. So they managed to understand certain things like economics of the industry, what, you know, and what makes interest rates move and you know, be able to give customers good, sound advice there, you know, you know, budgeting, you, your general finance accounting. You know, there should be courses on income, income calculation, variable income should be a whole, a whole course on its, on its own. That's like a, that's like 401.

That's, that's the last year that, that's when you get your masters. Variable income.

Yeah, but I think, you know, honestly I still, you know, we're in a people business. It's an interesting business. Run a people business, run a service business. Right. We're in a psychology business. Like I, I think when you think about what would be some of the most important things that you could grasp in learning in college that become relative into sales, it's absolutely psychology. Really understanding, understanding, you know, humans or makeup, you know, when you understand people, you, you better, you, you better understand how to help and serve and sell people.

Absolutely, absolutely. You have to learn how to communicate to people effectively. You need to determine who the decision maker is. Is it the wife? Is it the husband? Is it Uncle Bill? Is it the parents? So there's a lot of psychology in it. There's a lot of technical, I mean, how much better would our lives be in our company be, Tom, if all the loan officers knew how to calculate income correctly, knew how to review self employed tax returns, learned how to review bank statements and just had all that basic fundamental knowledge that sometimes we have some ellos who are amazing at it and some los who have a lot of Room for improvement.

So that's, I think that's the moral of today's episode and topic is like put yourself in school now. You know what I mean? If you think you can sharpen, you could say, man, I wish I went to school. Go in school, go to school now. You know, you know what, what it is that, you know, you, you need to learn to be great and it's different for everybody. There should be electives, you know, you know, especially as it comes to, to sales and marketing, there should be electives, you know, because it's, it's one of those things that it's not like here's the, here's the exact road map. There's one way to do this. This is the way, you know, follow this. You know, as, you know there's loan officers elect to do different things and, and, and they all drive results.

Right? So I think, you know, I think I'll tell you some of the, I think more important which are probably should be just general courses for every college degree but you know, courses on mental preparation, time management habits developing, you know, successful habits should be like a, a course in college. You know, you, you think about these things because it's, it's so much mental, right? It's the men, it's, it's a mental preparation that makes you think right now, me at the age of 45, I could go and learn more and I, and I, I can, you know, and I do.

It's all out there. Yeah, all the information. We're in the information age. So I'm thinking of if you want to learn the more technical aspects of the mortgage business, the MI companies pump out classes every single, every single month. There's, you could take dozens of classes on how to calculate variable income, self employed borrowers, the basics of mi, how to, how to look at an asset. It's, it's all there. And then we're all big believers in coaching. I think that's really where I got my first true education and mortgage sales was coaching and that I started in 2018 and I, I started in the business in, in 2000.

So 18 years. I don't want to say I was fumbling around because my craft was good, it was honed, a lot of practice, but it was all self taught in looking at older loan officers when I was younger. Yeah, it's all out there. All the, if you want to learn anything in this world, you can buy a book on it, watch a YouTube video or find it on the Internet. So there's really no excuse for loan officers. Besides, you know, hey, we're all busy, we get it. But all, all the information is at your grasp to improve your game.

Yeah. Why is it though that people don't think to be a loan officer? Do we not make this thing look too attractive? You know that the loan officers just to young kids and not look at and be like, man, I want to be a loan officer. Like, that's an awesome job. Like, why, why don't, why isn't, why.

Is it that, I mean, it's kind of dry. However people grow up wanting to be in, you know, to our accounting friends and engineering friends. Don't take offense. People grow up, want to be an accounting and engineer. I think, you know, if you look at real estate, and I should have this fact, I think it's the third or fourth biggest industry in the U.S. so, you know, real estate and adjacent mortgage finance, you know, items like that, people forget about it. If you were to ask my kids, who I've told probably 500 times that I'm not in real estate, I'm in mortgages, if you caught them in a moment, they would probably say, I sell houses. Even though I tell them almost weekly I'm in mortgages.

It's kind of an abstract concept for anyone under the age of probably 18. What, what a mortgage loan officer is and what we do.

Your daughter said something to you awesome the other day. Do you remember what you said that she had told you about your, when you're always working.

No, refresh my memory.

You said, she, she said you're always working, but you always look happy.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I, I, I love what I do. It, it doesn't feel like work. I mean, that's a whole, that's a whole nother episode. But yeah, most days I am happy.

That's the key to life though, right? I hope for everybody out there, whatever their, their, their dreams are or degree that they're pursuing or career aspirations, I really hope that you love what you do. And you know, when you do it is everybody tells you that and, and you know, either you're going through life and, and not understanding what that means, or you, you completely get what that means. And I've been blessed fortunate enough to, to completely understand what that means. And I hope, I hope that everybody in life gets to have that feeling of fulfillment, purpose, excitement and, and love and passion for what you do.

Absolutely.

It's a great business that we're in. But you know, let's, let's think now, you know, going through all These courses, you know, first of all, if there was a, you know, all the colleges, universities, institutions out there, if you were to peg one or two that would be like the top. If, if, if, if all of a sudden becoming a loan officer was a degree, what would be the top schools for it?

I, I mean, first of all, you could get through a lot of this stuff in a year or two. So if you wanted the 40 year degree, you have to be well rounded with, you know, all the liberal arts things that you would take. Philosophy, sociology, history, you know.

Yeah, we're going big time, man.

Yeah, I mean, in those courses it allows you how to, teaches you how to think, how to learn. I mean, a business school, I guess there are, there are real estate.

I probably see it totally different. I think about the mental makeup of people that are usually loan officers. It's probably a party school, man. It's probably like party school, you know, West Virginia University or, you know, what are some of the top party schools out there today? I don't know.

Who do you think makes the best loan officer? Someone who's communications, psychology or finance, if you had to pick one man, or marketing?

I don't know. I think it's somebody who, it's the place that figures out how to put it all together and how to teach people to be individual and, and you know, and focus on what they're great at because you don't have to be great at in any of it. But if I were to say that again, I think, I think psychology, I think we're, we deal with people and I think anytime, you know, you, you, you, you work with, serve, deal with people, understanding psychology is a massive value. But I don't know, man, there's so much there. That's the thing, that's one thing is it's, there's no degree for it. There's no, you know, you just kind of fall into it. But great loan officers, you know, great originators, great producers, you know, they're, they have a lot, they have a robust skill set. You know, they understand a lot of, you know, finances and income that can be very, you know, complicated guidelines that could be moving, fast moving and complicated and scenarios that, you know, are challenging and, and, but they also understand, you know, how to market and how to attract, you know, leads and conversions and sales and, you know, there's a, there's a lot there.

But then.

One thing about the mortgage world is, and I always say this, and I say this respect to all our listeners, oftentimes doing the actual mortgage can be the easy part. Once, once you have enough experience, you've done enough transactions, doing the actual loan, closing the loan can be the easy part. Yeah, there's hundreds of thousands of loan off officers who have left the business or retired who are very good at doing the loans. The hard part oftentimes is getting the business in the door, attracting referral partners, making clients feel safe and secure and valued. That can often be the hard part. I mean it's a given oftentimes that you're good at your craft and you're a good technical loan officer. Especially in the lean times that we're experiencing now.

Yeah, no doubt. So imagine, imagine a world where every year there's, you know, 10,000, you know, new graduates with a degree of a loan originator that are coming out and you know, many are at the top of their class. I wonder what, I wonder where the recruiting game starts.

Now that would be hard. I mean there'd be some sharp, hungry LOS coming, coming out. You know, maybe we need something like that. Given the dearth of young loan officers in the business, there'd be some really sharp people coming out. You know, one barrier for entry for a lot of los, I think is a lot of companies, unless you go depository or credit union, don't offer base salaries. So you're 100% commission. So that can be a barrier for entry.

Yeah, it would probably if, if they started coming out like that though trained degrees, you know, you probably coming into worlds that, you know, I know I'd be going after some kids in the top of their class and bringing them in for intern.

Oh yeah.

You know what I mean? And that's a really, a great, great way to learn. Really. Because really you're kind of in an internship when you start this business anyway.

Sure.

And probably a decent, you know, as you know, the revenue that can be generated, a decent paid internship that can really prepare somebody and you know, you know, you almost think like a, got somebody in an internship and you do a salary and potentially even a sign on bonus that they're there for X amount of years. And a non compete bringing somebody that you know is trained for this thing for four years that was the top of their class. Like you know, it might not, you know, be a, you know, you know, everything about their personality. They've, you know, you, you kind of know what you're getting. You know, have a better idea what you're getting. It might, might change the whole, the whole dynamics of the industry.

You know, one model may be financial advisors. They're usually on a team, they're doing grunt work. When they're younger, they're studying for their Series 7. And then in the evening, at least a lot of my buddies who are financial advisors, they're just pounding the phone for hours and they're getting a lot of, they're getting mostly, you know, hang ups, rejections, but they just grind it out. So you certainly need a personality that can take rejection and you need to be disciplined about it because making cold calls, we all know are not fun.

In the same sense. Man, I know people that have made, you know, several hundred thousand dollars a year for several years that are scared of rejection and, and, and barely make phone cold calls.

Sure.

You know, that's not a lot of, that's not a lot of industry that, you know, you can see people still turn six figures and not do half of the things that people tell you it takes to be successful. Fun topic today though, and, and congrats to all those that, you know, have had really, really successful career in an industry you never thought you'd never had any preparation for and you got into and having success. So congrats to that. And I think we've established that because there's no preparation for it, there's no education for it, there's no degree. People don't, you know, seek to be loan originators, that it's one of the better careers out there. You know, it's hidden.

We don't need an eight year degree like a doctor or an extra three years for a lawyer and start making money like in our mid to late 30s. We know a lot of loan officers who are making more money than doctors and lawyers. Some even hit seven figures. It's amazing what you can do in this industry. To your point, Tom, it's a hidden gem. And more young people, because they don't know about it, it's a little abstract. What is it? More young people don't get into it. So Tom, maybe we should start our own kind of like two year associate's degree.

I know there's like Xenix and some other companies out there that do it, but there's so much in mortgages that the CE just scratches the surface. And it's such a great career.

Yeah. Hey Dave, if you could go back to college right now, like not that you're going to change careers, but if there was like a, a degree that you know, because you're in what you're in, what would you go back? What would you, what would you get a degree in?

I'd probably double. I'd probably double major in marketing, communications or psychology. Yeah, I mean, marketing and communications. Especially marketing. I just learned on the fly. If I had some re. Some real education that I can sink my teeth into, except from what I learned on the fly would be amazing. I mean, there's so many practical uses that in our business.

Yeah. But the good thing is, like you said earlier, there's so much information out there. You can learn about anything you want to learn about. So put yourself through college. You know, if you feel, if any of this is speaking to you, like, man, I wish I'd learned this, or I should have gotten better at that, like, go do it. You know, there's resources out there. You can always go back to school for some of these things. But school does not do one thing to prepare you to be a loan officer.

And maybe, maybe one day that will change. Maybe this episode is what's going to spur the change. Dave.

I don't think so, but that'd be great. But one takeaway I'd have is just being a lifelong learner. I mean, that's something you and I, Tom, subscribe to. I'm always trying to get better in one small aspect of our business, and that's important. The best loan officers that we see are always trying to hone their craft, always trying to get better. The perfect example is AI. I know that's hot for LOS right now, but, you know, some of our top LOs are constantly learning and AIs, you know, big on what, what they're looking at right now.

Yeah. Yep.

Well, hey, this, this was a great episode. If, if you're a new loan officer out there, if you're in college, struggling, looking for something to do, reach out to us. We'd, we'd be more than happy to talk with you, exchange emails, talk, get you on the phone from Tom Mills and Dave Holland, lending leadership of the mortgage pros. Hit that like and subscribe button. We'll see on the next one. Thank you.

Take care, everybody. Thank you.