Soham Deshpande

🎯 Barclays Hack-o-Hire 2024 Interview Experience

Barclays Recruitment Process 📌

Barclays visits campus almost every year and follows a standard recruitment process, including:

• DSA Rounds
• CV Screening
• Technical and HR Interviews

However, I participated in Barclays Hack-o-Hire 2024 during my second year. My team worked on a customer support app capable of:

• Tracking customer queries across different communication platforms
• Summarizing queries
• Attempting preliminary resolution via chatbots

Due to this, I directly advanced to the interview process, skipping the online assessment. However, DSA is still crucial regardless of the route taken.

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The Day of the Interview ☀️

We were called early in the morning, but the actual process started around 10 AM due to logistics.

Sitting in a chair, nervously waiting for my turn, I was fortunate to be comforted by Apeksha Bhosale didi (which means older sister in Indian languages). She helped me rationalize my thoughts and stay calm.

A short conversation with Anand Jahangirdar sir further boosted my confidence. His friendly and respectful demeanor made me believe the process would be fair and encouraging—and surprisingly, that was the case.

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Technical Interview ⚙️

The technical round went well. Maybe my Hack-o-Hire participation gave me an edge, but by this point, my confidence had grown significantly.

With many TE and BE candidates, the process was taking time. But as we exchanged technical interview experiences, my hope kept increasing.

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HR Interview 🏛️

My HR interview was conducted by Khushboo Dubey ma’am.

We discussed various topics, including Marcus Aurelius and other philosophical subjects, before arriving at a crucial question:

If urgent changes are needed and you are unavailable, would you share your credentials with a colleague or supervisor?

I naïvely answered:

Only if I trust the person.

This failed the Integrity principle of Barclays' RISES values, which Khushboo ma’am politely pointed out.

At that moment, I thought I was done for.

However, I calmly explained my thought process and added:

Perhaps I am naïve.

(This is still true, by the way.)

Maybe sticking to my honest reasoning helped because...

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The Final Selection 🎉

By 7 PM, I was nervously waiting in the hallway. As my friends were called into the seminar hall one by one, hearing my name was the sweetest feeling.

Inside, Anand sir suddenly announced:

There will be a third round now.

Immediately, everyone was on alert. But the Know it all Nilay Tayade pointed out:

They do this every year. Just a stress reliever. No extra round.

And Fortunatley he was right

The most relieved I had felt in a long time was when Anand sir revealed he was just messing with us—we had been selected at Barclays! 🎉

The room erupted in cheers and excitement. Seniors (BEs) shared their own experiences about the long journey to getting Finally selected as they went from company to company and the relief they felt when that finally happened. And that is an eye opener to what all this really meant.

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🌟 My Two Cents

💡 Do your research before the interview!

• Find out who will be interviewing you and what they do.
• Understand the company’s projects and technologies.
• Many of my peers had a smooth technical interview because they talked about Barclays' projects and related technologies.

This allows you to steer the interview in your favor. I only partially did this, but it makes a huge difference.

💡 If you haven’t cracked a company yet, don’t worry.

Race abhi lambi hai! 🏁

Hope this helps! 🚀