IBPS-CWE-Clerical

Details of

Common Written Examination (CWE)- Clerical conducted by

Institute of Banking Personal Selection (IBPS)

Institute of Banking Personal Selection (IBPS) will conduct the Common Written Examination (CWE) as a pre-requisite for recruitment in Clerical Cadre posts in 20 public sector banks. This selection process is divided in three parts. These are CWE( Prlims), CWE (Mains) and Interview. On successful completionof these three steps a candidate will be declared selected.

Opportunities in Banking sector:

Considering the growth in the economy, expansion of branches and the retirements of employees it is expected that the Banks will need around 85000 employees (51000 clerks and 34000 officers) in the next three years. As per other reports total officer vacancies would be around 85000, vacancies for clerks would be around 1 lakh and for sub-staff these would be around 25000 during this period. Out of these State Bank of India alone plans to fill 33000 vacancies. Further, in the next five years Banks need to recruit around 7.50 laks people. That means more than 50 % of the banks employees would be newly recruited people. Considering the past trend it appears to be true.

The recruitment is a lengthy process they have mandated the process to IBPS and IBPS is conducting the Common Written Examination (CWE) as a pre-requisite for recruitment Clerical Cadre posts in 20 public sector banks.

What is CWE ?

An individual has to take this CWE, if, he wants to join as a Clerk / probationary officer / Management trainee in any of the 20 PSBs. IBPS will issue a score card for those candidates who scored minimum qualifying marks in the examination.

Now each participating bank will issue a separate recruitment notification specifying the eligibility and the minimum score in CWE. These banks will individually finalise the candidates as per their policy (after Group Discussion, Interview etc.).

Why CWE?

Back ground:

Earlier to join in a public sector bank one needs to qualify in the examination conducted by the Banking Services Recruitment Board (BSRB). BSRB conducts examination for a particular Bank(s). These BSRBs were there for a group of banks for a particular region. There used to be a sponsor bank and participating banks using this BSRBs services in that particular region.

Successful candidates are allotted to the bank and candidates do not have any choice in the final allotment. At the same time banks also do not know who is joining them. Further, Banks have to pay for the maintenance of the BSRB even though they do not recruit. At the same time IBPS is managing the backend work.

Limitations in the previous model:

As per the previous model Banks would advise the BSRBs their requirement and BSRB would advertise to fill the vacancies, or the banks themselves would advertise. In this way every year around 10-15 banks would call the applications and conduct written test separately. As per the convention there will not be more than one examination of any bank on any Sunday. The intention is to provide an opportunity to the candidates. Once the written test is over declaration of results, then conducting the other steps like group discussion, interview and then declaring the final result. This takes around 7-9 months time. So candidates apply for more than one examination as 10-15 banks ask for application from candidates in a year. For each examination one needs to pay around Rs.600/- . This is costly and time consuming also. Even after selection in a Bank there are chances that the same candidate is selected in some other bank also and he may consider the other bank as a better choice for a variety of reasons and he may quit the earlier bank. So the vacancy is as it is for the earlier bank and time and money is wasted for both the bank and for the candidate.

CWE – The solution?

This system of CWE has been approved by each of the 20 PSBs, managing committee of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) and the Government of India. Accordingly Institute of Banking Personal Selection (IBPS), an autonomous body, has received the mandate to conduct the CWE.

With the introduction of CWE a candidate has to appear for the CWE, if, he wants to join as a clerk/ probationary officer / Management trainee in any of these PSBs. IBPS will issue a score card for those candidates who scored minimum qualifying marks in the examination.

The advantage with this system is that a candidate need to attend only one written test that covers all these banks.

The Banks :

Allahabad Bank

Andhra Bank

Bank of Baroda

Bank of India

Bank of Maharashtra

Canara Bank

Central Bank of India

Corporation Bank

Dena Bank

IDBI Bank

Indian Bank

Indian Overseas Bank

Oriental Bank of Commerce

Punjab National Bank

Punjab & Sind Bank

Syndicate Bank

Union Bank of India

United Bank of India

UCO Bank

Vijaya Bank

Note: State Bank of India conducts separate written tests for recruitment in State Bank of India, its Associate Banks separately. Thus normally a candidate may get a chance of appearing for 4 tests in a year (i.e. IBPS-CWE-Clerical, IBPS-CWE-RRB, SBI recruitment, Associate Banks recruitment).

Validity of the score:

The score card is valid for a period of one year (generally). However, the expiry date will be declared by IBPS in the advertisement itself. The flexibility of attending for subsequent examination for enhancing the score if a candidate wishes to is also available. This score card will be sent to the candidates address by Registered post / speed post by IBPS.

Written test pattern:

Preliminary Examination:

S.No	Description	No.of questions	Marks	Time
01.	English Language	30	30	Composite time of 1 hour
02.	Numerical Ability	35	35
03.	Reasoning Ability	35	35
	Total	100	100

Main Examination:

S.No	Description	No.of questions	Marks	Time
01.	Reasoning	40	40	Composite time of 2 hours
02.	English Language	40	40
03.	Quantitiative Aptitude	40	40
04.	General Awareness (With special reference to banking industry)	40	40
05.	Computer knowledge	40	40
	Total	200	200

Interview : Interview will be conducted for the successful candidates in the Main examination and this will be for 100 marks.

All these tests except English language will be available bilingually i.e. English and Hindi.

General awareness may comprise of Banking, Economy and Social sector etc. Questions on Computer Knowledge were included in this section earlier and now they have kept it as a separate section and allotted 40 question and 40 marks. For this section one needs to be aware of the primary topics, along with latest developments. In both theses sections one can score maximum score with little time (in examination).

Generally the time consuming topics are Reasoning, Quantitative aptitude and English language. One needs to have hands on practice for these subjects.

There is negative marking also in this examination. 0.25 marks will be deducted from the marks for each wrong answer. Therefore one needs to be very careful while marking the answers.

One needs to secure minimum standard score in each subject as well as on the total weighted standard score to be called for interview. Mere passing in each test / subject will not yield any result as the candidates will be called for interview as per overall merit. Thus you have to secure high scores then only chances of getting through will brighten. However, marks scored in only in Main Examination will be considered for shortlisting for interview and also for Final Merit Listing.

Shortlisted candidates in the Main examination will be called for an interview. This interview will be conducted by the participating banks and coordinated by the Nodal Bank in each State /U T.

On successful completion of the process candidates selected provisionally will be allotted to one of the banks based on the merit and preferences keeping in view the the govt guidelines, administrative exigencies etc.

IBPS not only conducts examinations for recruitment in Public Sector Banks, State Bank of India, SBI Associate Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Reserve Bank of India, NABARD, SIDBI, General Insurance companies, Life Insurance Corporation, few Co-op. Banks etc. Thus the examination pattern may be more or less same for all these. Therefore preparation for an examination will help in getting good score in all the examinations.

So start preparation and get a coveted job in the ever flourishing Banking Sector.

Wish you all the best.