How To Become A Commercial Lender: What It Is and Career Path

What is a commercial lender and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

A commercial lender is anyone lends a business or an individual money to pay for business needs for expansion and operation. Commercial lenders provide short-term and long-term loans to help businesses get a grip on their activities. As with most lenders, they only offer loans that are backed by collateral security. Most commercial lenders prefer real-estate as collateral, but clients can also use factoring or non-conforming assets as collateral.

Commercial lenders include mutual companies, hard money lenders, commercial banks, private lending institutions, and various financial groups. Each of these groups has different standards and loan criteria for evaluating potential borrowers; however, they are generally more lenient than banks.

Commercial lending provides a flexible way of sourcing for funds with minor restrictions. Although profitable, it is not a good idea for everyone; default may mean forfeiture of your collateral.

ScoreCommercial LenderUS Average

Salary

5.9

Avg. Salary $74,995

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.3

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.49%

Asian 5.89%

Black or African American 10.53%

Hispanic or Latino 13.87%

Unknown 4.71%

White 64.51%

Gender

female 27.27%

male 72.73%

Age - 44

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 44

Stress level

7.3

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.8

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a commercial lender

Explore commercial lender education requirements

Most common commercial lender degrees

Bachelor's

74.8 %

Master's

15.0 %

Associate

7.5 %

Start to develop specific commercial lender skills

Skills	Percentages
Commercial Loans	14.83%
Customer Relationships	13.64%
Loan Applications	8.20%
Loan Portfolio	7.50%
Credit Analysis	5.71%

Complete relevant commercial lender training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New commercial lenders learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a commercial lender based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real commercial lender resumes.

Research commercial lender duties and responsibilities

Establish contacts within SBA to gain competitive advantage on knowledge of regulation changes and timely processing of applications.
Work with COI's, and partnerships to achieve success in helping small businesses with their financial needs.
Develop cross-sell opportunities with no-relationship manage business banking clients.
Analyze and support development and execution of underwriting, automation and operational strategies to efficiently and effectively manage the portfolio.

Prepare your commercial lender resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your commercial lender resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a commercial lender resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable commercial lender resume templates

Build a professional commercial lender resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your commercial lender resume.