Does Public Sector Banks conduct campus recruitment?

Public Sector Banks earlier used to visit the various management and engineering colleges to recruit candidates who have just finished their courses from the prestigious institutes and are looking for job opportunities in banking sector. Recruitment in various technical and management level posts were done by the public sector banks by campus selection of the eligible candidates. The practice of recruiting candidates from campus have come to standstill due to the fact that there were many court cases regarding the selection of candidates from management campuses of various institutes. Presently the selection of candidates related to finance, marketing and strategy are selected through Specialist Officer Recruitment conducted by Indian Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS).

As per the guideline of Ministry of Finance, ‘Recruitment of officers in public sector banks against permanent direct recruitment vacancies by resorting to campus recruitment/interview method may not be in accordance with the law’. This means that public sector banks can hire officers only through examinations such as those conducted by the IBPS. However the some public sector banks like SBI has said that public sector banks should be given an opportunity to tap the best talent from premier institutes like IITs and IIMs. The public money goes into formation of the institutions like IITs and IIMs. From all of these good institutions, which nurture the best talents of the country, the public sector banks are barred from recruitment.

IBPS conducts recruitment for various specialist officers in various fields such as IT, management, finance, Human resources, agriculture, accounting and other such fields. These posts were filled through campus recruitment by the banks previously. Due to the fact that most talented and candidates with good academic record were taken up by the private sector enterprises at higher salary package, the banks were left with no other option than to choose from the residue of the students available in such institutes. This was rather a compromise in part of the banks and thus the selection has been given to IBPS to conduct. Through this process, interested and eligible candidates apply for certain posts of their interest and a fair selection takes place through written examination and personal interview of the candidates.

Amidst the competition which is growing every year it is quite a task for the candidates to get through these posts and thus they need to prepare for the examination well before the dates of examination. There is a good opportunity for growth after the candidates join in as specialist officers in various nationalised banks, as they can rise to higher levels through inter departmental examinations in their respective banks.