Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) has released the notification for the recruitment of Probationary Officers (POs) on 9 August. As many as 4,102 PO vacancies have been announced. Registrations will begin from 14 August, in online mode and the last date for application will be 4 September.
The examination authority has only announced the dates of IBPS PO application form, pre-exam training, prelims and mains exam. The rest of the dates related to other stages of the recruitment process are expected to be declared in due course of time.
IBPS PO 2018 pre-exam training will be held from 1 to 7 October, while the prelims online exam will be held on 13, 14, 20 and 21 October. The mains exam for qualified candidates will be held on 18 November.
It must be noted that the test will be held for the recruitment of Probationary Officers and Management Trainees across 20 participating banks. Out of the total 4,102 vacancies, 2033 are for Unreserved (UR) category, while 1185, 599 and 285 vacancies are reserved for OBC, SC and ST categories respectively.
The prelims exam will be held across various IBPS PO exam centres in 195 cities, while the mains will be held at multiple exam centres in 72 cities. In the prelims exam, the candidates have to answer a total of 100 questions for 100 marks. There will be three sections in the preliminary exam – English, Quantitative Aptitude and Reasoning Ability. While English will have 30 questions, Quantitative Aptitude and Reasoning Ability will have 35 questions each. Candidates have to complete each of the three sections within a time limit of 20 minutes.
The candidates, who will qualify in each of the three sections of the preliminary exam, securing the minimum qualifying cut off, will be able to sit for the mains exam only if they are shortlisted by the examination authority.
In the mains exam, candidates have to answer 155 questions for 200 marks. This stage of the exam will have four sections – Reasoning and Computer Aptitude, General/ Economy/ Banking Awareness, English Language and Data Analysis & Interpretation. In addition to these four sections, candidates will also have to take a descriptive language test. The mains exam will have no sectional timings, however, candidates must complete the exam in 3 hours. The descriptive English Language test (letter and essay writing) will have 2 questions for 25 marks to be completed in 30 minutes.
Candidates who qualify in the mains exam and are shortlisted will face an interview, which will be held by the participating banks and coordinated by the Nodal Bank in each State/ UT with the help of IBPS. Candidates will be allotted marks out of 100 for their performance in the interview. To qualify, candidates have to secure at least 40 percent (35 percent for SC/ST/OBC/PWD candidates) marks in the interview. The combined final score will be calculated on the basis of marks secured in mains exam and interview.