How to prepare for Bank Interviews

This post is for all those who aspire to get a job in Bank. Once you have qualified the written test for Bank PO or clerk your next aim should be to crack the interview. Cracking a bank interview is not tough; you just need to be yourself and remain confident.

Just like other interviews, interviews for banks are also aimed at judging the confidence and soft skills of the candidates. This is because the soft skills of the candidate are already judged in the written test. In the interview board of bank there are 2-4 people who ask questions on varying topics including candidates resume and educational and family background.

Regarding the questions asked in bank exams the questions vary from candidate to candidate. However there are some general questions that you should prepare for interviews. You can expect some general questions like

1. Tell us about yourself?
2. Why you want to become a bank PO /bank clerk?
3. Tell us about your family?
4. Tell us about your strengths and weakness?
5. Where do you see yourself after 5-8 years?

You should not try to give any ideal answer to these questions. Just give true answers and be frank and yourself.

Do not forget to read about some original interviews in my coming posts. Also do not forget to go through these most popular posts on this website.

How to prepare for Bank PO exams

How to minimise negative marks in bank exams

How to prepare for general awareness paper of bank exams

What is the Job profile of PO?

Why do you want to become a Bank PO. Is it because most of your friends also want to become PO or because you see a lot of people preparing for bank exams all around you? Have you ever thought of the work profile of a PO? What do you think that you will have to do once you are recruited as a Bank PO? In this post I will answers all these questions and many more related to the work profile of a bank PO.

Whatever field you want to join, you must research about it, about the work profile. Why? A  lot of people to reply to this question saying that it will help in  qualifying the interview as it can be one of the probable questions there. In my opinion you should be aware of the job profile of PO because this is what you have to keep doing your whole life. This will ensure that you do something that gives you satisfaction and pleasure all your life.

Now lets come to the job profile of a Bank PO. Bank PO is your entry to banks which exposes you to various works in banks. In the beginning your work is continuously monitored by senior officials that will help you to understand the work and rectify your mistakes. The probation period is of 2 years in most of the banks. With core banking getting acceptance and popularity in banks now a day you are also expected to have working knowledge of computers. You will have to be involved in works like depositing and giving money, making drafts, collection and clearing of cheques.

Thus I hope that now you are aware of the job profile of bank PO which will help you to work as a PO without any problem. In my next post do not forget to read about difference between bank clerk and bank PO.

How to prepare for general awareness paper of bank exams

General awareness is a very important and scoring section in the bank exam paper. Moreover this section can help you to save time for other sections also. General awareness paper is common to both Bank PO and Bank Clerk exam papers. Thus this section must be given priority by all the aspirants of Bank exams.

Now let us analyse the General awareness paper of bank exams. The general awareness paper in banks consists of questions on following topics:

1. Financial Awareness
2. Current Events
3. General Knowledge questions

Questions based on financial awareness include questions regarding banks, banking policies, RBI, mutual funds, SEBI etc. Questions based on current events include latest happenings in various fields like sports, politics, movies, awards etc. General knowledge questions include questions regarding books and authors, general terms etc.

Now let us come to how should you prepare for the general awareness paper? Here are some the tips that will help you in preparing for general awareness paper:

1. Make it a habit to listen to current happenings through news channels or you may use newspapers for this purpose. Among the newspapers Hindu is recommended by most of the banking institutes but I will suggest you to use any reputed newspaper as per your interest.
2. Secondly you should also read reputed magazines like Pratyogita Darpan in order keep your General Knowledge update.
3. You should also practise the old question papers in order to become familiar with the type of questions that are asked in this section.
4. Moreover one of the most commonly asked question in this section is about dates and their importance. Read about the important dates and their importance here.
5. The last thing that must me remembered about the general awareness section is that preparing General Knowledge section is not a matter of one day. It requires time and patience and thus keep working hard with patience.

How to minimise negative marks in bank exams

The competition for bank exams is increasing day by day. At such every aspirant of bank PO exams must be careful about the every single question especially about the negative marking in bank exams. The negative marks in banks can make a great impact on your overall score in bank exams thus affecting final selection.

Generally negative marking is equal to the 1/4th of the marks awarded for correct answer. Thus if a question is of one marks if you attempt it wrong 0.25 marks is deducted from the total. Thus one must be careful about the negative marks. At such you should stay away from blind guessing as it is never going to help you. However you may guess an answer if you are able to eliminate the number of options given for a question to two. This is called intelligent guessing.

Now let us come to the steps needed to reduce the negative marking

1. Never guess an answer if you not sure of the guess.
2. Practise more and more questions, which will eliminate the chances of answers getting wrong due to haste.
3. Do not get lured for answering more and more questions. Remember that qualifying marks in each section is only 40% of total marks. Thus if you attempt about 70% questions correctly you can expect a call for interview. At such do not start guessing answers for more and more questions.
4. Once you have darkened a circle, then you should not change it later. Remember your first instinct has maximum probability of becoming true to what you have read.
5. Finally remember that every single number matters in final selection. Thus you should follow all the above mentioned tips to save your final score from the impact of negative marking.

How to prepare for Bank PO exams

Preparing for bank exams which is considered to be difficult among the bank aspirants is actually not that difficult, its just different. It needs a planned and systematic approach. In this article, I will explain how to prepare for Bank PO exam. This post also includes the analysis of question papers and duration of PO exams.

First of all let us analyse the Bank PO paper. The PO paper is usually of 220-300 questions. Time allowed for the exam is 2-3 hours. For instance in the Bank of Baroda bank Po entrance exam held on 13-3-2011 the number of questions was 275 and time allowed for the exam was 3 hours. Thus it gives you about for solving one question. Does it appears too less? If yes don’t worry,you need not solve all the questions. The qualifying marks in each section is only about 40% of total marks in most of the exams. Even if you attempt 150 questions correct out of 200 questions you can expect a call for interview. What is important here is the accuracy; you need to solve those 150 questions correctly. You may find it hard to attempt 150 questions correctly in the initial stages of your preparation but as you start practising more and more you will definitely see improvement. The key to success is saving time in sections like General awareness, English, computer and to use the saved time in time consuming sections like Maths and Reasoning. Moreover the time of making circles black should also be taken care of as it can make a difference. You will take about 8-15 minutes for making 200 circles black. To save time here you should darken the circle at last all together, but make sure you have arranged sufficient time for this at end.

There are different sections present in the Bank PO paper. For example in the Bank of Baroda PO paper held on 13-3-2011 the sections present were
Reasoning
Quantitative Aptitude
General Socio-Economic & Banking Awareness
English Language
Marketing Aptitude

In my opinion one should attempt General Socio-Economic & Banking Awareness first, then marketing aptitude and then English. This way you will save a lot of time for Reasoning and Quantitative aptitude.
You can read more about preparing different sections of the paper in my coming posts. Also do not forget to read about the tips to crack bank interviews and Interview experiences.

More than 85000 Bank Jobs Waiting For You

A good news for all the aspirants of Bank Jobs, about 85000 vacancies in banks are expected to come in the next three years. This estimate had been made at Economic Editors Conference recently by Indian Government officials. Thus all the students preparing for bank exams should keep up the patience and hard work and don’t feel dejected by any failure. The assurance of so many vacancies by the Finance ministry should boost up your confidence.

As all of you must be aware of the fact that already the highest number of vacancies in government jobs have come in the form of bank recruitments in recent years. And this scenario is expected to remain the same for at least next five years.The announcement made has declared about recruitment of 51000 clerks & 34000 officers between 2010-2013.

Most of the aspirants are afraid of the fear that will the vacancies keep coming. For such aspirants this declaration by Central Finance department at the Economics editors conference should come as a sign of relief. Thus we advice you to have faith on God and your efforts which will ensure one of the final selections for you among these 85000 vacancies.

Indian Government has also decided to conduct a common entrance test for all the public sector banks through Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS). You can read more about the common entrance test for banks in my next post.

<<<All the best, go grab one of the 85000 seats>>>