Home > News & Trends > National > SBI - March 1, 2010, by Shahid

You Don’t need Maths to become a SBI Bank Officer!

If you want to become a bank officer but are not so good at maths, there is no need to worry. You can still grab an officer’s post provided you have good logical and reasoning abilities, thanks to State Bank’s of India’s change of policy.

In its recent notification for recruitment of 4,000 probationary officers (POs), SBI has dropped the numerical ability and quantitative aptitude papers to the pleasant surprise of many a candidate. According to a senior SBI official, a lot of thinking has gone into the change in test pattern. “At the officers’ level, what is important is data crunching but not simple number crunching. A higher focus on logical reasoning abilities might be better,” he said.

Another angle to the decision could be the assumption that those who aspire for bank jobs should generally be good at maths. According to Mr C. S. Vepa, Director, National School of Banking, a training institute for bank exams, the increasing use of core banking solutions and computers make expertise in numerical ability not so relevant to an officer’s job.

“In the current economic environment, an officer is supposed to take speedy decisions based on sound reasoning. In fact, SBI, in its notification clearly mentions that the reasoning test will be of a high level,” he said.

Many good candidates from rural areas are expected to benefit by the new pattern of exam. “Many banks are now planning customised recruitment patterns. We need to see what comes next,” he added. Interestingly, Syndicate Bank did away with the recruitment test for its officers’ exam conducted recently. “We short-listed the applicants for interviews,” said a Syndicate Bank official.

Proposal for Common Test

There are also other proposals, one of which is a common entrance test, the score in which (like GMAT) can be used to short-list the applicants for various positions in banks. Last year, banks had hired over 50,000 candidates for which nearly 80 lakh candidates had competed. This year, about 40,000 posts are expected to be filled.

Source : SBI