Indian economy has been one of the talking points in the entire world. People from all around the globe are interested in understanding the Indian economy, which showed huge resilience in the face of turmoil caused by the recession that hit the US market. To a very large extent, such strength has been derived by the banking sector in the country, which is not only expanding but are also increasing its spectrum of activities.
It is because of the increasing demands of the jobs in banks that a stiff competition is being seen. Many students are already prepared before passing their graduation or 10+2 exams that they would be getting into banking jobs. Nowadays, banking jobs are being taken up with conscious decision rather than alternate choices.
There are positions of clerks and probationary officers as well as many other specialist officer posts in the banks. Depending on the aptitude, qualification and the ability to crack the entrance exams and interviews, people get selected into the respective cadres. The inclination of people to join the banking sector is clearly evident from the figures of the number of applicants for different banking exams.
More than 1 million people appear in the various entrance tests for recruitment into the banks every year, out of which about 30,000 people actually get the positions for which applications are put down. Although this is a very crude figure, it goes on to tell the high ratio of applicants to the number of vacancies. The story was not the same a few years back, when many banks had to do without sufficient manpower. It is an obvious question as to why such a change has been observed in recent years and will continue to do so in the future. 3 factors can be ascribed to the shift in focus towards banking jobs, as reasons for so many people choosing the career in banks.
- Expansion and better packages – The large number of opportunities in the banking sector is the foremost reason for so many candidates in the entrance exams. Almost every bank in the country is in an expansion mode with stress on opening branches in every city of the country. India being such a large nation, it is imperative that a huge workforce is necessary to man all the banks. Also, the expansion is being seen in the spectrum of work. In earlier days, banks were synonymous with the deposits and withdrawal of money, issue of drafts and money orders, processing bank accounts and few cases of loans.
- Multilevel function – With the realization that the banks can be converted into a single place for all of people’s financial dealings, the work profiles gradually encompassed loan for various purposes, insurance schemes, mutual funds, equities and shares, etc. Nowadays, people can go to a bank and plan out their investments, without having to seek a second place or opinion. With so much of work to be done through the banks, it is a matter of responsibility for the people working in the banks to give advice and suggest financial planning. With responsibility come better salaries, which have been actually quite reasonable these days. Although this has a lot to do with the 6th pay commission, the role of government is also no less because of the recognition that has been shown to the banking sector.
- Uniform exam – The initiation of uniform examination system for recruitment into the public sector and nationalized banks of the country is a step towards making the process of recruitment easier, both for the applicants as well as for the banks. In total 19 nationalized participating banks take up the candidates on the basis of their written exam score in the IBPS CWE. The candidates are called for interview if they have a cut off scores, if they have applied in the respective banks after finishing the IBPS test. Depending on the post applied for, the students will be able to get into clerical or PO or specialist officer posts through such a process, making it simple as well as uniform for everyone involved.
- Eligibility flexibility – A decisive factor for the career in banks is the ability of students with different educational backgrounds to appear in the entrance tests. Since for probationary officer posts, only a graduation in any discipline with a minimum of 55% mark is sufficient, people from various streams in graduation can apply. With a little practice of model test papers and previous years’ papers, they can easily crack the entrance exam. For the clerical posts, the qualification is simply 10+2 pass, thereby allowing people to start their career in banks from such a young age and gradually rise up the ladder of banking jobs.
With the above three factors giving a bright study of the future of banking jobs, it is natural that people will be attracted towards them. This is the reason for the increasing popularity of the career in banking since many years now.