Over Ten Thousand Probationary Ffficers' jobs are on offer from various public sector banks

Over ten thousand probationary officers' jobs are on offer from various public sector banks since January this year. Emoluments for these jobs work out to nearly Rs 25,000 per month at the junior management grade (Scale-1).

About nine public sector banks had advertised during the past six weeks for some 10,255 jobs. A minimum of another 10,000 jobs are expected to come up during the course of the year.

Banks have undertaken this recruitment exercise to fill up vacancies arising from large-scale retirements that are currently under way. These recruitments are also being done to meet requirements of branch expansion.

Banks have invited applications from candidates who have a graduate degree as well as a prescribed score in the common written exam conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS). Over 1.10 lakh candidates were successful in this qualifying exam.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Banks have tended to prescribe different eligibility criteria for their job vacancies. For some, just a graduate degree with a certain IBPS score is enough. Some insist on 55 per cent marks in graduation, while others require 60 per cent marks in graduation. Again, for most banks, the age limit is between a minimum of 21 years and a maximum of 30 years. A few have tweaked it slightly — Corporation Bank has fixed 20 years as the minimum and PNB has fixed 28 years as the maximum.

SCORE MATTERS

Even the range of IBPS scores prescribed by banks for eligibility has tended to vary widely (see table). While Bank of Baroda and Allahabad Bank have chosen to keep the eligibility score at 125, Corporation Bank has kept it at 151. This exam was conducted for a total of 250 marks

Union Bank of India did not prescribe a score at all in its advertisement for 2,473 officer vacancies — a move that came in for considerable criticism from a large section of the candidates.

Subsequently, one had to infer that the bank had prescribed 166 as the cut-off score based on the list of eligible (over 10,000) candidates put out on its Web site.