Barclays Interview Experience for Graduate Analyst BA3 | On-Campus 2021

Eligibility Criteria: CS & IT students from Final year, with ≥ 60% score across class X, XII and Engineering Semesters.

Round 1(MCQ (Technical) + Coding): Easy & Medium (17/08/2021)

MCQ questions covering topics like:

• Java
• C
• C++
• SQL
• DBMS
• OS
• OOP

Coding Questions:

• Given an array of integers (+ve and -ve), you need to create as many partitions as you want such that if there are K partitions and Pi being partition ‘i’, then P1 – P2 + P3 – P4 + P5 – … should be maximum. (20 Marks) Here(https://www.hackerearth.com/problem/algorithm/measuring-weights-54c2dc75-b4ccf064/)
• Given a binary string, find out the maximum prime number that can be created by any of its subsequences (not substring).  (50 Marks)

I was able to solve both coding questions fully, and in the MCQs section, except for Java-related questions was able to answer majorly all of them. 

100 students gave the above round, and 23 (8 Girls, 15 Boys) of them were shortlisted. I was one of them. My interview was scheduled for the next day at around 11 am. The interviewer was a VP at Barclays.

Round 2(Tech + HR Interview): 18/08/2021

• Interview began with exchanging greetings & the generic Introduce Yourself!
• Based on my introduction, he asked me regarding one of my projects.
• It was a Full Stack website that I had created as a part of a college council, and we talked about it for a while.
• Since Python was my primary coding language, I was asked a few questions related to it.
• Next we touched on the concepts of OOP.
• Then, we talked about my instances of being a leader and so on.
• 1 puzzle was given.
• Then we came to Barclays’ famous and most discussed thing, i.e RISES (Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence, Stewardship). These are the values that Barclays likes to work with, and are very dear to them.
• He asked me to define my understanding of each of them.
• Then he gave me a situation that, if I’m on a vacation & there’s an urgent work that has come up, and I don’t have access to my device obviously and my manager asks me for my credentials so that he can enter my system and do the work. In such a scenario, what’ll I do?
• Now, the trick here is, maybe many of you would think that “work is important and urgent, so I need to show dedication towards the company and my commitments and give out my credentials so that work can get done.”
• I answered saying “Even though the work is urgent, giving out my credentials will not be the right thing to do from my side as well as asking for it is also not right from the manager, keeping in mind that Barclays values Integrity so much. The device might contain confidential personal information. But considering Stewardship, I will take responsibility for my commitments and instead ask a colleague to do the work from his/her system for me.”
• Then I was asked if I had any questions for him, and I was ready with a few.
• End

The results came out 2 days later, 14 (5 Girls, 9 Boys) were selected and I was one of them. It was really a peaceful feeling, and felt like my hard work from the past 4-5 months was finally answered.  

Tips:

1. Make at least 2-3 good projects and ensure you know each bit of it.
2. Practice Technical Aptitude Well.
3. Browse the Barclays website (Both UK (https://home.barclays/)& India(https://www.barclays.in/)) for an hour at least, and jot down points which you wish to talk about in the interview.
4. Read plenty of GFG Archives, they’re the best & single source of truth.
5. Reach out to me on LinkedIn (Search ‘Param Shendekar KJSCE’) for more!