SBI SO System Success Story - Giridharan SR

I’m Giridharan S R pursuing M.E. Software Engineering (Anna University, Chennai)

I’ve been selected as Specialist Officer - Assistant Manager (Systems) in SBI and I hope my experience would benefit future aspirants.

Freshers / Experienced Candidates

The notification adv. for the post read “Experience is desirable” . There were few online posts making rounds that only experienced candidates would be preferred.
But having just experience doesn’t influence the selection much. I’m a fresher and a good number of freshers have made into the final list. So, what matters is your score in Professional Knowledge section and how well you do in the interview.

Exam Preparation

1. For Reasoning, English, Aptitude any material that you've used for other competitive exams would do good. Since the scores in these sections are purely of qualifying nature and cut-offs would also be very low, don’t need to worry much.

2. Professional Knowledge section is a deciding Factor.I would recommend “Practice Book for PSUs: Computer Science and IT (English)” by Made Easy publications.Practicing the questions from Level 1(concentrate on theory/conceptual questions than problem solving) would help. Make sure you’re thorough in basics of OS, DBMS, Networking, Web Technologies, Security related concepts (Virus, Worms, Basics Crypto Concepts – Hashing, Public Key, Private Key, Digital Signature, etc.,) .

Written Exam

Exam held on April 19, 2014

• The exam had composite time for Reasoning, Apps, English (90 mins) and 45 mins for PK section,(which means that you can’t go back to answer questions in Reasoning/Aptitude/English sections after the first 90 mins. The last 45 mins can be spent only on PK section. But irony is that solving PK questions did not take more than 20 mins, since they were all theory/concept based and involved no numbers/problem solving as in GATE/Other PSU’s .)
• The questions in PK section were more like (See Attachment 1.pdf) and some 5-6 questions were exactly the same.

Cut-Off

• Getting some 10-15 questions correct in Reasoning/Apti/English would be sufficient.
• To qualify for interview, getting 40+ questions correct in PK section would be safe.
• We didn't get the detailed scores, info on interview/written score weightage etc. as of now. Will update them if I get any info

Interview

• For 207 vacancies, 709 candidates were called for interview.
• Interview for shortlisted candidates held in Bangalore,Kolkata,Mumbai and Delhi.
• I had my interview on July 9,2014 at Bangalore.
• Members : 4 ( 1 HR, 1 for Banking Related Questions, 1 Apps/Logical/GK/Current Affairs , 1 CS )

Questions asked in the interview

1. Why Banking Career?

2. SWOT Analysis

3. Services offered in ATM’s

4. Difference between Compound Interest and Simple Interest

5. How to sort dates that are stored in dd/mm/yyyy format

6. Indexing in DBMS, Types of Indexing, Why do we go for indexing in DBMS

7. How to measure the efficiency of a computer program?

8. Questions on UG Project

In all 4 interview venues, the panel member mandated for asking CS questions seemed to be some Professor working in top institutes of respective cities.

So be well prepared for questions on UG project, basic concepts of Networking, DBMS, latest technologies(Eg. Delhi candidates got qns from Cloud,Virtualization techniques etc.,) and don’t try to bluff.

I would be glad to help the aspirants. Drop a mail to srgiridharan+sbi@gmail.com