Hi! I am Amey Kamat, and I am a graduate of National Institute of Technology Goa in Computer Science and Engineering.
Today I am sharing my experience during the interview and Barclays interview questions for developer profile, for which I got selected through the on-campus placement drive.
Barclays Technology Center India is a captive technology unit of Barclays PLC which has three campuses across Pune (i.e. Hinjewadi, Kharadi and Yerwada). It caters to the technology needs of its sole customer, i.e. Barclays.
It was September 2016 and Barclays was the first company that had placement drive offered to us. (Actually, it was campus pool placement in BITS Goa where our students competed with the BITS Goa students.)
The placement drive consisted of 5 different rounds, out of which 4 rounds took place on the day of the placement drive. The last round occurred online later.
These rounds judged candidates from various perspectives. First, let’s have a look at the prerequisites before Barclays interview questions for the developer profile.
To apply to Barclays, one has to have CS majors with 8.0 CGPA. However since the candidates with no CS background were interested as well, the applications were opened to all departments with 7.0 CGPA as the cut-off.
Once candidates complied with the above requirements, they were invited to the test center (i.e. BITS Goa). The placement drive started sharp at 9 AM with pre-placement talks.
This was followed immediately by the preliminary test in the lab. This phase consisted of:
The preliminary test consisted of 18 questions to be solved in 90 minutes. This test was divided into 5 segments as below:
This section had high school mathematics questions on speed, time, rate, profit, loss, flow, etc. The answer was to be written in the text box in the form of simple integers.
Time management is crucial. You should follow the standard ways of solving aptitude questions.
This section had a comprehension based on some topics in computer science and a few questions based on comprehension. The comprehension for me was based on cloud architecture. The aim here was to evaluate your understanding of technical language.
This section consisted of multiple-choice questions with one or more choices. Questions were simple and were based on logical deduction.
Two programs were provided and we were asked to trace it manually to work out their output. Practicing interview coding questions will always help you to crack Barclays interview questions for the developer.
This was the most important section of the test. Not only that we were supposed to code correctly, but also with minimum time complexity. (I had also been asked the same questions during the interview round, whether I know I have coded correct or not.)
We were allowed to run the code on an emulator for testing before submission.
After the test, 16 top candidates were selected for the next round and we were asked to disperse for the lunch. The next phase started at 3 PM with Group Activity.
During the group activity, we were divided into groups of five and a group task was allotted to us. An evaluation was done individually for each of the candidates by observing how does the candidate perform in a group setting.
In the end, we were asked about our experience, how we managed to complete a group task and about the strength and weaknesses of the team.
In our case, we were given a bunch of straws and a ball, and the task was to hold the ball as high as possible from the ground (Think!!!).
There was no elimination after group activity.
After Group Activity, the candidates were asked randomly to appear for the interview simultaneously in the six different rooms. As the interviews progressed, they asked rejected people to leave randomly. I was one of the last ones to answer both interviews.
During the HR interview, the interviewer looked at my posture, eye gaze, behavior, etc. Questions were mainly based on past experience and final year projects.
He asked me why I wanted to join Barclays and inquired about my hobbies, my knowledge of finance (For which I said I had very little of it.) and cryptography.
Finally, he allowed me to ask him a question. I would advise to be straight-forward honest in the opinion and not to speak vaguely.
Just to give you an idea, my friend literally had a verbal fight with the interviewer about his motive to join Barclays which landed him the job (although I wouldn’t suggest this approach).
Also, prepare for common HR interview questions usually asked in all the HR rounds.
Then I was asked for technical questions for the developer.
The majority of the questions for this round were based on my past knowledge. The focus was on interview questions on Object-Oriented Programming, database, algorithms, and asymptotic analysis.
For this round again be honest and remember that you are not expected to know everything. In my case, he explained to me a concept which I did not know and expected me to answer questions based on it.
After this Barclays interview questions for the developer profile on the test day, we were called in a room. The final list of the selected candidates was declared. Selected candidates had to go through the online situation judgment test a few days later.
Situation Judgment Test (or SJT is also known as Values Test) is a test that judges if the candidate fits in the moral framework of the organization, i.e., Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence, and Stewardship (also known as RISES).
In this test, the questions were based on a scenario, where you have to select the most appropriate response out of multiple options.
They told us to be serious about this test, although none of the candidates from the list were eliminated after SJT.
So That’s All Folks!
This is all about my experience on how to crack Barclays interview. If you are attending the Barclays interview, make sure that you know about the company well in advance.
About Barclays Company:
Barclays is a giant financial firm with a history of more than 300 years. They are pioneers in many of the financial technologies such as credit cards and ATM machines that we use every day.
Of course, they do provide you this information during the pre-placement talk. But knowing things in advance will give you a little edge over others.
It would help you to crack HR Barclays interview questions for developer profile with much more ease.
Best Luck!!
Editor’s Note: Thanks, Amey Kamat for sharing your Barclays Interview Questions for developer profile and complete recruitment procedure. All the best for your career.
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