What SBI Clerk is
SBI Clerk is the recruitment for Junior Associate posts in the clerical cadre of the State Bank of India, the role the bank describes as customer support and sales. State Bank of India runs this recruitment itself rather than through the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, which is why it carries a separate application, a separate admit card and a separate result from IBPS Clerk even though the two exams test much the same ground.
A Junior Associate works at the branch counter: account opening, deposits, customer queries, and the sales support that goes with them. Recruitment is circle wise, so you apply against a state or a circle rather than a single national pool, and the posting stays within the circle you applied to. That one detail changes how people choose where to apply more than anything else on the form.
Who can apply
A bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognised university is the academic requirement. Candidates still in the final year of a degree should read the notification closely, because the date by which the degree has to be complete is stated there rather than left to assumption. The general age band is 20 to 28 years, with the usual relaxations for reserved categories and for persons with disability, and the cutoff date the age is measured against is the one printed in the notification.
State Bank of India also asks for proficiency in the local language of the circle applied for. The notification sets out how that is established, so read the clause before settling on a circle.
How the exam runs
Two stages, and no interview. The Preliminary Examination is a one hour computer based test covering English Language, Numerical Ability and Reasoning Ability. It is a screening stage: it decides who sits the Main Examination and nothing more.
The Main Examination runs for a little over two and a half hours and covers General and Financial Awareness, General English, Quantitative Aptitude, and Reasoning Ability with Computer Aptitude. This is the stage the merit list is built from, so it deserves the larger share of preparation time. Both stages apply a quarter mark penalty for a wrong answer, which means an answer you cannot narrow down to two options is usually worth leaving blank.
Preparing the application
The photograph and the signature are uploaded as JPEG files, and the exact dimensions and file sizes are set out in the notification you are applying under rather than fixed across years. Read them off that notification, then use the photo and signature resizers on this site, which do the work in your browser without uploading your files anywhere.
On exam day
Reach the centre at least an hour before the reporting time printed on your admit card, carrying the printed e-admit card and an original government photo identification that matches the name on it. Mobile phones, smartwatches, calculators, earphones and any other electronic device stay outside the hall, along with anything the centre has not explicitly allowed.
The SBI careers portal linked above carries the current notification, the circle wise vacancy detail and the exact dates this page does not state.