PSBs hunt for new-age talent to grow business

MUMBAI: State-owned lenders have more than doubled their hiring plans as the likes of SBI, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank are in the process of recruiting as many as one lakh people this financial year amid evolving roles to match new-age banking.

The government banks are tapping talents across the hierarchy with specialised functions like wealth management, analytics, strategy, digital and customer services. All such key areas are important to ensure expanding businesses in a perfectly competitive market. Public sector banks now have fewer clerks and more officers.

Around 20 per cent of total employees fall in the category of clerks.

Only State Bank of India has around 45 per cent employees holding such positions, showed an estimate by Team Lease, one of the largest staffing companies in the country.

“State-owned banks are turning competitive after battling mammoth bad assets,” said Sabyasachi Chakraverty, business head – banking & financial services at TeamLease. “The need is to change the culture of PSUs to drive business, and this has been seen in their hiring patterns.

They are now focusing on hiring talent in line with new age as well as private/multinational lenders. This, in turn, should yield results over a period of time.”

“Hiring outlook for the government lenders is also brightening,” he said.

Barring lateral hires, these banks collectively hired 95,000 personnel (about 47,000 each year) in the last two years at positions like clerk, management trainees and probationary officers, according to Team Lease estimate.

“Going forward, the plain vanilla generalist recruitment will give way to specific niche, strateg y-based hiring,” said Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, CEO, Syndicate Bank, which is recruiting 500 people this financial year.

“We need new type of manpower as they will be put in new areas like digital marketing and stressed asset recovery.

Remunerations are also attractive at the first three entry levels compared to foreign and private lenders.”

The average age of Syndicate bank has come down to 37 from 46.5 two to three years ago.

With increasing complexities, new specialisations, requirements have risen. Such lenders are even hiring talent from private players creating designations like chief ethics officer, chief marketing officer, chief investment officer, chief learning officer, head of analytics and digital marketing campaigner.


Salary levels could be as much as Rs 50 lakh a year.

Digital banking, especially in the aftermath of the country’s currency swap programme, has also led to recruitment spree in the tech and customer services divisions.

“Public sector banks have felt the urge to change their way of working as people with prior experience in private and foreign lenders are given targets to grow the banks,” said Chakraverty.

State Bank of India is spearheading the recruitment drive as it sees potential of business expansions in coming quarters.

Besides fresh hiring, the bank is also looking to appoint 5,000 people through lateral hires, according to TeamLease.

Bank of Baroda has planned to hire 500 to strengthen their portfolio management services or wealth management divisions. It is said to be hiring legal professionals as it focuses on efforts to recover bad loans.

Even IDBI Bank, which is currently under prompt corrective action, an austerity measure to bring back a bank’s financial health, notified to hire some senior executives earlier in April-May. It appointed professional consultants to carry out the job.
Emails sent to SBI and BoB remained unanswered until the publication of this report. Canara Bank and IDBI Bank could not be contacted immediately for comments.

The popularity of bank jobs among job aspirants can be seen by the huge numbers who appear for the recruitment exam.