ICICI BANK PROBATIONARY OFFICER RECRUITMENT GROUP DISCUSSION & INTERVIEW PROCESS, May 2016 Batch Dear Owais Shiekh, Login ID: BLPO20011600154 Congratulations on having successfully cleared the online aptitude test for ICICI Bank’s recruitment process for probationary officers. We are pleased to invite you to participate in the next round of the selection process consisting of group discussion and interview. Please read the instructions in the mail very carefully. This invitation is meant for the purpose of ICICI Bank Probationary Officer recruitment process only. Please treat the invitation as private and confidential. A. We request you to report for the Group Discussion/interview process on the below mentioned date, time and venue: Date: 25th February 2016 Location: Bangalore Address: ICICI BANK LTD. 4/10, MYTHREE TOWER, BOMMANHALLI ,HOUSR MAIN ROAD 560068 Time: 10:30:00 AM Please keep adequate time at hand to cater to various stages of the GD & PI process. You are requested to report at the venue 30 minutes before the scheduled time. B. The Selection Process would include three sub steps : 1. Online Personality Profiling: Please ensure that you have completed the OPQ as per instructions in the last mail. If not, please complete the same before 4:00 pmby 14th February 2016. 2. Group Discussion: On the day of the process, you shall appear for case study based group discussion (GD).GD process is designed to assess applicants on orientation towards group cohesiveness and analytical skills. (Please refer section ‘C’ for the details.) 3. Personal Interview: Applicants shortlisted after GD process will undergo a personal interview process on that day itself. C. The GD will be based on any one of the four enclosed case studies ( Refer annexure). The choice of the topic will be as per the discretion of the panelists. Please note that you are not expected to know the scenario by heart or quote facts from the shared scenarios. They are just to initiate you into the given topics. You are requested to go through all the cases and prepare yourself in advance with your understanding of the topics. You can also refer external information sources (newspaper, internet, etc.) for the same. You shall not be provided any extra time during the GD process to go through the cases. The GD process evaluation shall be on your perspective about the case, thought process and interpersonal skills. You are not supposed to carry any sort of documents/written notes to support your understanding during the GD process. D. Please carry two photocopies of the following mandatory documents for the Group Discussion Process: Copy of this mail. A copy of your latest CV Photo Id Proof (Driving license, Passport, Voters Id, PAN card, Government college Id) SC/ST certificate (If applicable) A copy of your passport size photograph Attested Photocopies of the following : Class 10 mark sheet & certificate. Class 12 mark sheet & certificate Graduation mark sheets of all semesters & certificate (In case your graduation results are awaited, please bring your previous years mark sheets and provisional certificates) For any further queries/clarifications email us at po.programme@icicibank.com , Call 040-61061068/ 61061069 between 9.30am to 5.00pm (Only on working days, Monday-Friday). We look forward to your participation in the Probationary Officer Recruitment process and wish you a successful career ahead. Regards, Neha Dubey ICICI HRMG ANNEXURE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Case Study 1: Technology changing the face of education ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Technology is changing rapidly with new innovations and discoveries being made across the world. The change has touched our lives, directly and indirectly. One of the core aspects of an individual’s life is education and today, technology through the availability of expansive data and information is bringing about a revolution in this world. Technological advances like e-learning, internet; educational cds, digital classrooms, etc. are being embraced by several educational institutions to provide the students with large amounts of relevant information. The institutions today can have classes with lecturers from across the world or even virtual classrooms where skills and learning can be put to practical use to the extent unimaginable a few years back. Also, the delivery of the information through these mediums is in a much more interactive and creative manner than textbooks, resulting in there being a shift in the culture of learning from ‘memorizing’ to ‘understanding’. The usage of technology has already become an integral part of higher education and has been rapidly trickling down to touch the students at the beginner level. Recently, a school in Mumbai informed all the students from medium school onwards to purchase electronic tablets for their educational purposes. This is a display of the drastic change in the educational patterns and processes. In such age of technological change, the role of teachers is also changing. They are no longer the bearer of knowledge, the one and only point of contact to provide information and solutions. The students are faced with a different problem today, the issue being the excess of information available to the students. There is need for the teacher to be a mentor and guide the students through the chaotic bombardment of information in a structured manner. There have been several issues identified in the form of rising costs, accessibility to technology, etc. However, as put by Mr. Arnab Ganguly, former chairman of CBSE, “Technology is playing a vital role in education in developed countries and this is the fact we can not escape from”. ------------------------------------------------------------------------Case Study 2: Social networking in our lives ------------------------------------------------------------------------The world today has shrunk and it is rightly referred to as a global village, with information, data and news flying across to different corners at the blink of an eye. All it requires is the click of a button and all the information you need is in front of you on your screen. The availability of information has also extended to our personal lives with the entrance of social networking platforms. Today, the availability of the social networking platforms like Facebook, Google+, Orkut, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. information about individuals is freely available to all. One can easily be in touch with thousands of individuals across different phases of their life. One is regularly updated with personal information, photographs, thoughts, opinions, and lots of other aspects of an individual’s life. The nature of social relationships is also undergoing a change. Earlier friends would have picked up the phone to reach out to a friend, today they might choose to ‘poke’ the friend on facebook or write on the friend’s wall. Though the number of people the individual is in touch with in the virtual world increases drastically, it is seen that the individual’s personal interaction with individuals reduces. The virtual contact creates a false sense of being in touch with others, though the personal one on one interaction with individuals which are vital to any form of relationship is reduced. About twenty years ago, the British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, observed an association between the sizes of primate brains--specifically the size of the neocortex--and the number of social contacts. Chimps can process a smaller number of contacts than humans. Dunbar concluded that humans can handle regular contact with a number of friends somewhere between 100 and 200, and 150 became the standard Dunbar number for our species. So, though the social networks tend to give the perception of an increased friend circle, the individuals are actually in touch with much lesser. There are also cases of enhanced loneliness amongst individuals since the only interaction with their friends might be through the virtual media. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Case Study 3: FDI in Indian retails- Boon or Bane? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Indian economy has continuously recorded high growth rates over the past decade. As per the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Indian economy is expected to grow at around 7.5% over the coming years. One of the major contributors to the growth shall be the Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and it is predicted that over the next two years, India could attract FDI worth US$ 80 billion. The latest available data from the Reserve Bank of India shows a 77 per cent jump in the FDI in the first half of the current financial year (April-September), compared to what was US$ 19.5 billion during the same period a year ago. FDI refers to an investment made to acquire lasting or long-term interest in enterprises operating outside of the economy of the investor. It is a major source of external finance which means that countries with limited amounts of capital can receive finance beyond national borders from wealthier countries. In case of India, countries such as Singapore, the US and the UK are amongst the leading sources of FDI. The sectors which attract higher inflows are services, telecommunication, construction activities and computer software and hardware. Another sector which is looking at benefiting from FDI is the retail sector. There have been discussions about FDI being opened up in retail which has drawn a lot of support from international retailers like Walmart and Tesco. It is also being seen as the means to put a structure in place to the highly unorganized retail structure prevalent in the country. The additional benefits in the form of lower costs and enhanced technologies make it an attractive proposition. However, the policy decision is faced with some resistance from internal organized retailers as well as some representatives of the unorganized sector. The entry of new competitors in the retail sector is being viewed as a threat by current players in the market. ------------------------------------------------------------------------Case Study 4: Generalization or Specialization? ------------------------------------------------------------------------I remember the days when if I fell ill, my mother would take me to a general physician. The doctor would prescribe some medicines as per his initial diagnosis of the illness and past experience. In case of a failure in effectiveness of the medicine, other options were sought to address the illness. Zooming ahead to 2012, today we look at specialization in all fields. Today if the child’s ear is blocked the mother will take him to an ENT specialist. Laws of economics support the practice, whereby, specialization and division of labor is expected to provide highest levels of productivity. This idea was, first, put forth by Mr. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, in his book ‘Wealth of the Nations’. Under this regime each worker becomes an expert in one isolated area of production, thus increasing his efficiency. The fact that laborers do not have to switch tasks during the day further saves time and money. Specialization has also been the basis of trade between nations. The countries specialized in commodities that their resources could produce efficiently and then proceeded to trade. It was observed that the world productivity levels improved massively. The world today is shifting from demanding a “jack of all trades” to demanding the “master”. The abundance of information in today’s world leads to any person adept at internet search skills is able to provide a general perspective about any topic under the sun. The need is to be able to provide an in-depth idea about the topic. Also, the level of competition in today’s world leaves no scope for error and thereby, comes the demand for specialization. With a team of such specialists, the performance delivered tends to have been scrutinized from the different perspectives, leaving lesser scope for flaws. The shift to specialization has influenced the growth of new industries and markets. It has also influenced our lifestyle, career choices and decisions. The need of the hour today is to hone the skill that exists nowhere but in yourself and thereby making oneself indispensable.
