RBS Interview Experience for FTE (On-Campus 2020)

RBS(Natwest Group) visited our campus on 1st September 2020 for the position of Software Developer at multiple locations. There were 3 rounds for selection in the company. 

Round 1 (CGPA+Resume Shortlisting): This was a screening round in which students were shortlisted either on the basis of their CGPA or on the basis of their resume (previous internships and projects were taken into consideration).

After this round, around 100 students including me were shortlisted for the online test round.

Round 2 (Online Test): The first round was an online test conducted on Mettl which consisted of 6 sections which had to be solved in a duration of 2hr. Overall there were 50 MCQs and 3 coding questions. There was no time limit on sections so you could jump on any question/section as per your choice

• Section 1: There were 2 coding questions in this section
  • Minimum number of sets with value less than k
  • Optimal file merge pattern with a slight modification to calculate the cost for merging.
• Section 2: This section was the algorithmic section. It consisted of one question:
  • “You are given an array, you have to rearrange in such a way that even numbers and odd numbers are at alternate positions without disturbing their relative order. The first number of the array will be even or odd depending on the first element of the input array.”
  • Example: Input array –> 2 8 9 10 14 17 13 21 Output array –> 2 9 8 17 10 13 14 21
• Section 3: This section consisted of 10 MCQs based on Quantitative aptitude. The questions were easy to medium and were based on simple and compound interest, profit and loss, probability, permutations, mixtures, and number systems.
• Section 4: This section consisted of 10 MCQs based on Logical Reasoning. The questions were slightly difficult and were based on figures, directions, calendars, blood relations, directions, clocks, etc.
• Section 5: This section consisted of 10 MCQs based on Verbal Aptitude. The questions were easy and consisted of fill in the blanks with the appropriate word, synonyms, antonyms, error detection, paragraph based questions.
• Section 6: This section consisted of 20 MCQs based on Technical aptitude. The questions were from all technical subjects including OS, DBMS, Data structures, time complexity, C/Java output based but the majority of them required deep theoretical knowledge of concepts.

After this round, 17 students including me were shortlisted for the next round which was an interview round.

Round 3 (Technical+HR round): This was a technical round conducted on Zoom meetings, the panel consisted of 2 interviewers. The interview started with a brief introduction about me, the different technologies I have used so far, and moved forward with an elaborate discussion.

1. What motivates you to be in this software industry?
2. Then they gave some situational questions to check how I will react in these situations. Some of those questions were
   • What will you do if you don’t get a department in accordance with your interests?
   • If your senior is not responding to your requests what would you do?
   • Will you leave RBS if you get an offer from another company?
   • What factors do you look up to when you get an offer from a company?
   • Will you join a startup that pays you more salary?
3. They gave me a DSA problem that was asked in the test and asked me to explain my approach. Then they asked if there is any other approach or Data structure that would be suitable to solve the same problem.
4. What is the difference between MongoDB and SQL?
5. How do you retrieve data in MongoDB using javascript? Write the code for it.
6. What is Scalability? What is the difference between horizontal and vertical scalability?
7. Which one according to you is better and why?
8. Where do you see yourself after 5 years, do you have any further education plans?
9. What are your hobbies apart from academics? Then we had some discussion on cricket.
10. Do you have any location preferences?

Tips: Try to be diplomatic and be thorough with your resume.

Finally, the company selected 5 students including me from the campus. I was glad to be a part of such a big group.