How To Get Success In Promotion Test

Tips for getting sure success in Promotion:---

·         Arrange blessing of any member of interview panel, it may be through phone call through any VIP.

·         Do not perform in your office but do not forget to say 'Yes Sir' to your boss every moment every day and take care of all right or wrong orders of the boss to get maximum marks in APAR.

·         Last but not the least, you need not work but you read and memorise all policies related to bank.

(Some more tips: You earn bribe through corrupt means, it does not matter, but do not forget your boss and never forget to offer gifts to boss on all occasion. Call your boss in every meeting , offer flower bouquet, offer golden gifts to higher bosses whenever they visit your office, you arrange frequent functions and spend lacs of rupees from bank’s expenditure account it does not matter , but always give some gifts to officer who chairs the occasion and who sits on the dias.)

Below given mathematics of marks substantiate my apprehension that though nothing can be tested in two minutes of interview , marks given in Interview has the power to make or mar the future of a bad or good officer respectively.Number of marks allotted to different parameters in different banks for promotion of officer from one scale to other may vary but almost runs on similar strategy.

Parameter	Total Marks	Minimum marks	Max marks	remarks
Education	5	1	3	A candidate appearing for interview in a promotion process in a bank is at least a graduate and a few of them have acquired one or two higher degrees.
Job Responsibility	15	6	15	In view of minimum service required one may get at least 6 marks and max 15 marks (2 marks per year)
APAR	30	20	28	Officer who is considered worst by appraiser will get at least 60% to 75% and officer who are the best will get 95%
Written Test	12.5	7	9	Officer passing written test will have to get at least 50% of marks and the officer who has memorized all answers by continuous reading (not by working )can get at best 9 marks.
Group Discussion	12.5	7	10	Same as above
Total	75	41	65	This is the range of marks within which an officer may get marks out of 75 before attending interview. Weakest officer will get at least 41 and the strongest candidate will get max 65 marks.
A tentative panel is prepared upto this and then the game of manipulation starts through Interview.
Interview	25	25	1	Officers attending are not asked any question in general. Officers who are to be selected are asked 2+2 =?, officers who have to be rejected are asked “What is the possibility of water on Mars) and a few average candidates area asked genuine questions related to banking
Aggregate Total	100	66	66	It is therefore the whims and fancies of members of interview panel who decides the fate of officer appearing for interview for getting promotion from one scale to other. If an officer has been recommended by some VIP he may get 25 out of 25 and get promoted whereas on the contrary if an officer who is not in the good book of Interview panel may get 1 or two marks which may nullify the effect of high marks he or she get in job responsibility or written test or APAR

Above chart makes it clear that if interview panel gives full marks to officer who has got otherwise only 41  marks out of 75 he will be promoted whereas on the contrary if the same interview panel gives 1 or 2 marks to an officer who got maximum marks 65 out of 75 in other parameters. Obviously interview marks play greater and effective role in promotion of an officer from one scale to other . 

An officer may be having  experience of two or three decades and an officer may have got excellent marks in APAR, but if interview panel desires to reject him they can do so very easily.On the contrary an officer with little experience and poor marks in his APAR due to his poor performance may be awarded with promotion if the interview panel so desire.

Here I would like to say that an officer has to face toughest written test and interview before entering into a bank as probationary officer or a clerk. Normally a person having first class graduate degree used to be eligible for appearing in recruitment test two decades or three decades ago. Now a days it may be additional ornamental degrees like MBA, BCA, CA, CFA, CAIIB etc.

On job responsibility parameter, an officers get marks on the basis of length of service he has served a bank in the capacity of officer in a particular scale. Some get chances to appear in 2 to 3 years and some have been appearing for last ten to 15 years but maximum marks are only 15. As such there is not much weightage attached to officers who have acquired higher experience. 

Bank mnagement has restricted marks in this parameter so that they may promote young officers of their choice even though he or she has not learn banking as expected from a promoted officer. It is unfortunate that officer who is devotedly working for years together are rejected only because they do not flatter to the bosses whereas some of young officers apply all tools of www to motivate and attract bosses.

Annual Performance Appraisal Report of an officer appearing for promotion has been written by different appraisers. Perception of such appraiser differs from man to man. Some prefer flattery and bribery , some prefer blind support from juniors, some like late sitting of juniors, some want that their subordinate officers should help in their family work, some bosses are having lesser knowledge level than his juniors and hence always suffering from inferiority complex and having high quantum of ego , some other give marks on the basis of caste and community, some give better marks to officer of his own state and give lesser marks to those who have been posted to his state from other states like this. There are many instances where an appraising officer from South gave better marks to officers belonging to south and similarly an officer of Orrisa gave better marks to Orriya officers and so on.

However an officer who do his best for the comfort level of his immediate boss, offer some gifts, wishes on birth day and say yes sir all the day to his boss and try to do whatsoever his boss likes and what his appraiser desires to have in return for good marks at least for a month or two i.e. just before the time when appraisal reports are written at the end of the year, he is sure to get better marks.

Moreover an officer who has been working for years together in credit department have little knowledge of foreign exchange, planning and development, credit recovery circulars etc. Similarly officers who spend most of his time on counters extending customer service like counting of cash or passing of cheques cannot acquire much knowledge in credit processing or in foreign exchange. Officers who use to spend most of his time in marketing a product is unaware of policies related to other part of banking.an officer who is given the duty of  marketing insurance product cannot answer question related to general banking. A security officer or Hindi officer cannot be expected to pass a written test which cover questions related to entire banking. 

Written test and Group discussion are such platforms where one officer may acquire good marks if he or she devotes most of his time in reading circulars and books related to banking. Officers who do not work in branch and office but always read and read only may get better marks whereas on the contrary officers who sit late and work for 10 to 12 hours in a branch cannot dream of reading materials related to written test. Most of the officers have been found expert in one subject which is related to his own department and found to be weak in rules and policies related to other department. It is to be noted here that an officer in any scale cannot be expected to have practical idea of every department. However during the service span of 20 to 25 years knowledge level increases and officer learns to do practical banking instead of harping on theories, rules and policies.

It is worthwhile to mention here that if all executives i.e. all officers in scale IV and above are asked to appear in the same written test which an officer in scale I or II o III is required to pass , I think 90% of officer will fail and hardly 25% of them will be able to get marks 25 and above out of 100.The bitter truth is that many of existing executive are of very poor quality than that of scale III and below.It was due to God father they even weak officers got promotion and talented officer got rejected in past promotion processes.

Interview is totally a play of members of interview panel constituted by board of a bank. If an officer has to get better marks in interview he or she has to know the identity of such interviewers, find out the officer who may motivate the interviewer by hook or by crook, impress upon the interviewer to give higher marks in interview parameter without asking any question during the interview. All members of interview board are generally having comfortable setting and adjustment among them and they decides before the entry of officer in interview room decides whether to select him or to reject him and accordingly they put easy or hard few questions and irrespective of quality of answer the candidate give they award marks to candidate which they had made up in mind before.

Moreover bank has to manipulate marks of interview panel as per suitability at central level. Because a bank is generally divided into 40 to 50 regions or circles and each circle has to get equal share in promotion result for officers working in their areas of operation. If single interview team conducts interview and identity of all officers is concealed, it may so happen that 60% of officers are selected from a region and many region are totally neglected in result. It means 20 officers may be selected from a particular region whereas some region may have zero number of officer selected for promotion. This may create Industrial unrest.

To avoid this critical position top executives manage and manipulate marks in such a manner that 4 to 5 officers are selected for promotion from each region depending upon the number of vacancies in higher scale. It is therefore undoubtedly bitter truth that promotion process carried out in banks is nothing but a fraudulent play of manipulation to cheat good officers.

It s futile to spend crores of rupees in carrying out such test and interviews and better to give full power to a central team of officer who will scrutinize the files of all officers in seniority order and promote them strictly in order of seniority. After all officers have potential to perform and excel in their area of work provided they are properly groomed and motivated and trained.

Service quality and asset quality of bank depend not only on knowledge but more on his managerial skill, his ability to read the credit worthiness of the prospective borrower and to manage the branch work in available quality and quantity of manpower. 

Inspite of all, it is not possible for all officers to perform in equal quantum because infrastructure and potential of area is different for different officer where he or she is posted. Potential at branch and administrative office is different and potential in different state and different district and village is different. As such it is foolish to expect equal result from all officers at all post in all the years.
Rampant flattery is worse than bribery

Rampant flattery is worse than bribery

Khushwant Singh
September 17, 2011

For quite some time I wondered about two words which appear in our theology but have no equivalents in any other language. What do ‘Aum’ and ‘Swaha’ mean? One is used as an opening word and the other as the ending in the first line of Gayatri Mantra: “Aum Bhoor Bhuva Swaha.” Can some reader enlighten me?

Flattery
While monetary corruption has been debated threadbare, a form of the same evil which is more rampant and has not received any attention is Khushamad/Chaploosi or flattery. It takes many forms but the object is the same i.e. to promote oneself.

First there is flattery by applause. I recall some meetings of Indian students in England, addressed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. At the end of the meeting a girl used to shout at the top of her voice: “Tum jeeo hazzaron saal, saal key din hon pachhas hazzar” — “Live thousands of years and may every year be of fifty thousand days.” Panditjee who was notoriously short-tempered with his countrymen looked highly pleased with himself.

It was in London where I was posted as a Press Attache to the High Commissioner, Krishna Menon that I came across the most blatant form of flattery and from a Punjabi ICS Arthur Lal, who could hardly speak Punjabi but spoke English fluently. I heard him say to Krishna Menon, “You have a greater mind than that of Stalin.” I thought Menon would snub him. Instead, Arthur became his favourite subordinate.

Lal dropped Arthur from his name and began to call himself Anand Shankar Lal. Menon recommended his name for the  Secretary-General of the  United Nations. America, which had accepted BK Nehru for the post, refused to support AS Lal’s candidature. So the chance of an Indian being UN’s Secretary General was lost.

Yet another form of flattery is to build up the name of a favourite rival and proceed to demolish them as best as they can. They chose to make Sardar Patel into Nehru’s principal political adversary and then put him down to gain Nehru’s favour. So the word ‘Patelite’ was coined for people who opposed Nehru.

This Khushamad paid handsome dividends. Nehruites came to be regarded as forward-looking liberals; Patelites were portrayed as backward-looking. Though no money was spent, it served its purpose.

Name Dropping
As rumour got round that I was on the way out, some acquaintances decided to pay me what can be best described as hello-goodbye visits. Amongst them the best known was Gursharan Kaur, wife of the Prime Minister. She is a VIP in her own right, as one who discharges her duties as the wife of the ruler of the country.

I was under the impression that she was a very soft person who spent a life-time cooking daal-chappati for  her husband wherever he happened to be — Washington, New York, Bombay and Delhi.

My first surprise was when she took my hand in hers to greet me. It was a wrestler’s firm grip. I expressed my surprise. “You are a toughy.” She expressed agreement with me. “Yes, I am a toughy.”

I asked her about her husband’s health by putting to her my stock question: “How long does he sleep?” She replied, “Around five hours at night. He does not sleep during the day.” I went on to the next question: “Does he ever lose his temper?” She shook her head and replied: “He keeps it inside and has never come out with it.”

We then chit-chatted about the country and its politicians. She was candid in her replies, but careful in her choice of words. She called for an end to our dialogue by lowering her head to receive my blessings. I put  my hand on her greying mop of hair, and blessed her by wishing her a long, healthy life.

She must be more than 30 years younger than me. I felt a sense of fulfilment as she took her leave.

No Happy Returns
A young girl invited a young man to her birthday.
Man: Congrats! I will come. Which birthday is it by the way?
Girl: Seventeenth.
Man: If I don’t forget, last time also you said it was 17th.
Girl: Yes, I am not one of those who change their statements every other day. I stick to my word.

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