Recently, State Bank of India has come out with its notification to recruit candidates for two ‘new posts’ – SBI Junior Associate for Customer Support & Sales(CSS)  and Junior Agricultural Associate. Both of these posts are in the clerical cadre. However many seemed to be confused about these posts and their work profile. So I have tried to address these issues in this post.

How Is SBI Clerk Different From SBI Junior Associate?

Mostly it is not, though there are some changes. The old SBI Clerk post has been repackaged as a new post, with a slightly revamped work profile. You could say that it is the old wine in a new bottle. Keeping up with the changing times, SBI has renamed the posts as ‘Junior Associates’ because the appointed candidates will be required to carry out marketing activities as well. This will include promotion of bank’s schemes and products to visitors. These posts form the backbone of SBI. Let us see what are the major responsibilities of the advertised positions.

SBI Junior Associate (Customer Support & Sales) Job Profile

As the name suggests, these positions will be dealing with customers of the bank directly, the main responsibilities will include:

1. Dealing with the customers and addressing their bank related inquiries.
2. Handling the operations on deposit counters and cash withdrawals.
3. Marketing bank’s products and services, such as loans, deposits, schemes to customers.
4. Taking care of the documentation and backend operations such as tallying, maintaining transactions data and records, data entry in computers and so on.

In the new avatar, outdoor travelling cannot be ruled out. Junior Associates could be required to call customers or meet them outside bank premises to market bank’s products and services. So not only will they be required to learn all the fine details of operations but would also need to develop customer friendly skill which would be required for marketing.

SBI Junior Agricultural Associate Job Profile

As you would have read in the SBI notification,  Junior Agricultural Associates will be posted in rural/semi-urban branches and require agriculture-related educational qualifications. Obviously, SBI plans to develop these associates for a specialized role. Junior Agricultural Associates will be required to:

1. Get involved in providing financial assistance to mostly agro-related self-employed individuals such as fruit/vegetable vendors, farmers etc. and maybe artisans in villages/small towns.
2. Use their skills to check loan applications as per bank’s policies.
3. Verify that loans are being used for stated purposes and provide reports on the same. This is important because a lot of schemes provide low-cost loans for specific purposes such as solar light installation, irrigation pump purchase and so on.
4. Market bank’s special schemes among farmers and other small borrowers.
5. Collect information about important factors such as crops, land holdings, infrastructure etc. in their region which will be used by SBI to plan their future business actions
6. Maintaining relation with local authorities to speed up bank’s work.

What About Promotions & Future Career?

SBI has well-established guidelines for promotion and career development. Apart from regular promotions, you can also clear department exams for fast-track promotions. A good summary has been provided .

Final Words

I hope the short description of SBI Junior Associate Job Profile provided you some useful information. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments below.

Feel free to check the other posts for this exam – paper pattern and books.