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.
- Branches eligible to apply: CS/IT
Process Consisted of 2 Rounds:
- Online Test
- Technical + HR Interview
Round 1(Technical Aptitude + Coding): Duration:- 90 minutes
This test was conducted on the HackerEarth platform and consisted of 2 sections.
Section A: comprised of 30 MCQ questions notably on Java, C, C++, OOPs, OS, SQL, and DBMS with emphasis on output-based questions on Java and C++.
Section B comprised of 2 coding questions of 20 and 50 marks respectively. They were as follows:
- Given an array of N integers, make any number of partitions such that if there are K partitions, P1 – P2 + P3 – P4 + P5 ….. +(-1)(K – 1)Pk should be maximum where Pi is the ith partition. https://www.hackerearth.com/problem/algorithm/measuring-weights-54c2dc75-b4ccf064/
- Given a binary string, return the largest prime number that can be formed using any of its subsequences (a generalization of substring).
Around 100 students appeared for the above round and 23 students were shortlisted for the interview process scheduled on the next day.
Round 2(Technical + HR interview):
The interview was conducted on WebEx and was both a technical and a managerial interview.
- The interviewer was very friendly and the interview started by exchanging greetings, enquiring about my day, and so on.
- He then asked me to introduce myself for about 5-6 minutes covering my educational background, strengths/weaknesses, family background, internships, projects, hobbies, and so forth.
- We then moved on to discussing each of my projects in detail regarding the tech stack used and why that particular technology was used, alternate technologies which could be used, the motivation behind each project, and a little bit of cross-questioning on the same. Since the interview was conducted in online mode, you might also be asked to run your projects.
- This was followed by questions on OOPs, DBMS, SQL related to my projects.
- Given that I had mentioned analytical and problem-solving skills as part of my strengths, I was asked a few situational questions based on the same. Barclays emphasizes a lot on their core values i.e. RISES (Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence, and Stewardship) as was mentioned in the Pre-Placement Talk and as observed in many interview experiences throughout GFG. I tried to incorporate whatever value I felt was best suited for the situation while answering the questions.
- The interview ended with the interviewer asking me if I had any questions for him and since I had looked him up the day before, I asked him a few questions specific to his project.
The results were out 2 days later, 14 students were selected and I turned to be one of them. 🙂
4 days later, the company sent out another email selecting one more student.
Tips:
- Make it a point to study all concepts of Data Structures and Algorithms, Operating Systems, DBMS, and OOPs.
- Do your fair share of research on the company and the interviewer beforehand, jotting down the salient points. https://home.barclays/
- Be absolutely thorough with your resumé and only write what you feel most confident about.
- Read as many GFG interview experiences as you can as they are extremely beneficial.
Good Luck!