My SBI interview

Date: 12^th january 2012, Hyderabad

Exam for SBI PO posts was held in july 2011. It comprised of an objective paper comprising maths, english, logical reasoning and general knowledge. The written paper comprised of letter writing and precise writing. After a long wait of 7 months results were announced and I was shortlisted for interview.

                On 12^th jan 11 AM I was called for interview to SBI Headquarters, hyderabad. I reached their campus around 10:30. It was a sprawling campus resembling a mini hitech city. A total of 18 people were called for interview. I had to wait for over two hours to get my document verified.  After which, they provided us lunch coupons and asked us to have lunch at their officers mess. After a quick meal, we were taken to a conference hall for group discussion. Again we were made to wait for another 2 hours as interviewers were busy interviewing people from morning batch.

                The conference hall was huge with state of art equipments. All of us were provided with a table mic. It was more a test on public speaking than a group discussion, as the format allowed no scope for countering others points. Everyone were given 2 minutes to talk on topic in 1^st round and another 1 minute to conclude in 2^nd round. The topic given was “villages in India are its strengths or weaknesses” . I said villages were once a strength and now have become our weakness and gave a few suggestions to convert our weakness into stength. After group discussion, the interviews started

                I was number 4 on list and hence didn’t have to wait for long . The interview board comprised of 4 old men. Unlike a traditional interview setting, this room had sofas on four corners of room and each was seated in one corner. I was made to sit on a chair in middle of the room.

Chairman: Welcome . please sit down.

Me: thank you sir

Chairman: So you have completed your graduation in 2010. What were you doing since then?

Me: I have been preparing for civil services

Chairman: What is the status now?

Me: I have written the mains and results are yet to be announced

Chairman: good. So if you get  through civil services, You would prefer it over this job

Me: Yes

Chairman: Did you write any other bank exams?

Me: Yes I did. I managed to clear the exam for a couple of banks but I couldn’t attend interview as they were too close to mains exam

Chairman: Ok. Do you know about lothal?

Me; Yes sir, it is a harappan site. It was an important port town

Chairman: Name some harappan sites in India

Me: Mohenjodaro

Chairman: its not in India

Me: sorry sir, its in pakistan. In India we have kalibangan, ranikhet

Chairman: Tell me one more

Me: I am not able to recollect now

Chairman: Name the person who designed delhi

Me: New delhi was designed by Lutyens

Chairman: Ok . what about chandigarh, rock garden is there na?

Me: I don’t know. I have stayed in delhi so I have an idea about it

Chairman: Ok. Name the tribes in meghalaya

Me: Mishmi…..gharo, khasi

Chairman: There is one more without which answer is incomplete

Me: I am not able to recollect not

Chairman: Its jaintia

Member 1: Can you give me technical definition of semi conductors?

Me: I can’t give technical definition but I can explain it

M1: ok please explain

Me: It is a material which has very low band gap and hence can be bridged easily and made conductive. So it can act as a conductor in certain circumstances

M1: Can you tell me how much that band gap should be?

Me: I don’t remember

M1: atleast resistivity

Me; No sir

M1: what about insulator?

Me: I ddon’t remember the band gap range

M1: Ok. Can you name a nobel prize winner who was born in almora?

Me: hargobind khurana?

M1: No.

Me: Am sorry sir. I don’t know

M1: name some nobel prize winners from India

Me: The latest was venkatraman

Chairman: what venkatraman?

Me: venkatraman ramakrishna

Chairman: no no tell me proper name

Me: I am not sure

M2; What is this? You have cleared prelims. You should saying these takatak

Me: sir the exam pattern has changed. It is more analytical and less bookish now

Chairman: but still, this is general knowledge. You will be asked these in civilis interview as well

Me: yes sir. I shall update myself in future

M1: Ok any other nobel laureates form india

Me: Amartya Sen

M1: Pandit amartya sen?

Me; No sir economist amartya sen

M1: that’s what. Pandit amartya sen

Me: eh??

Chairman : what he meant was you must address him as Dr Amartya sen. He has accomplished so much

Me: yes sir, he is professor emeritus, renowned economist

M2: Who is Rajat gupta? Do you know him?

Me: Yes sir. He is facing allegations of insider trading

M2: who was he helping?

Me: Rajaraman

M2: raja..what

Me: The srilankan Rajaratnam

M2; Yes. name some rating agencies?
Me: CRISIL, Moodys
M2: in India
Me: I only know about CRISIL in india

M3: Who was responsible for green revolution in India?

Me; M S swaminathan and Norman Borlaug

M3: Ok. What about white revolution?

Me: varghese Kurien

M3: where?

Me; at anand

Chairman: Ok thanks you may go

Me; I would like to thank you all for giving me this opportunity

Chairman: Ok all the best

The interview was for around 10 minutes. I left for home around 4 PM .

It was more a quizzing session than an interview. I have a feeling they have struck me off as my priority is civil services. Hence they didn’t ask anything related to banking or my background.

Anyways lets hope for the best. The results are expected in a months time.


Result: On 17th Feb 2012 results were out. Much to my surprise, i have been selected!

Moral of story: honesty and frankness helps at times :)

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