NABARD GRADE A Success Story- Pranjal Saxena

Tell us a bit about your journey!!!

NABARD GRADE A Success Story: It has been a long journey, I started my banking journey in 2019 and it took me 2 years to take off. Regulatory body exams are quite competitive in nature because of less number of seats and high level of competition. Not only this, there is uncertainty in questions being asked every year since the pattern keeps changes. I am quite happy and fortunate enough to clear NABARD grade A in second attempt. All in all, it’s a good feeling and still sinking in.

Let me give you a brief introduction about myself, I am from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. I have done my graduation in Electronics and communication engineering from National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar. Thereafter, I have worked in an IT firm for a year. And after that my aim was quite clear to get into regulatory body so I started preparing for it.. This was basically my second attempt at NABARD and last year I reached mains but I was not fortunate enough to get in the main list but fortunately this time around I am fortunate enough.

Why did you switched from Engineering to Banking?

NABARD GRADE A Success Story: When I started working at an IT company, the sense of realization hit me that I can’t do this for the rest of my life. When I was working at Wipro, I was handling job responsibility of front end technology, so I realized that work is monotonous.

On the other hand, if I speak about regulatory bodies say for instance NABARD, it is solely owned by government of India while ate the same time RBI Is a statutory organization. There work culture is different if you compare to an IT firm. Also, after a point of time one get to design policies, so in short the opportunities that one gets after a point of time are ample. The canvas is quite huge. For instance, if I talk about NABARD, it offers projects including women empowerment, Farmer producer organization, etch which is why I applied for regulatory bodies.

NABARD Grade A Success Story: What tips and tricks would you give to aspirants preparing for Regulatory Body?

One has to be precise with answers in regulatory bodies. It is because of tough competition because even a difference of 0.25 marks can make or break the deal.

1. Thorough with the syllabus: So one have to be thorough with syllabus. Moreover, there is a lot of overlapping in RBI syllabus as well as NABARD syllabus.
2. Study each section precisely: At the same time, the syllabus is too lengthy which is one thing that many aspirants fail to understand, and whether it be RBI or NABARD, they come up with general post so study each topic concisely. Since I have made this mistake in my first attempt, by studying each topic like I am doing Phd on each of the topic, it is nothing but a bad strategy since it decreases your overall efficiency.
3. Attempt Multiple mocks: Just make sure to attempt multiple mocks and analyze them from time to time.
4. Maintain Notes: Apart from this, you have descriptive notes and short notes of objective type questions. Revision would be much easier in such a way and one will perform great if all the points are followed as discussed.

NABARD Grade A Success Story: What were the challenges were for you faced during NABARD preparation?

NABARD GRADE A Success Story: NABARD has one major challenge which is that it has seven sections in phase 1, so one cannot neglect even one of the section because it will have direct impact on sectional marks. Just making sure that I am preparing with a balanced approach was one major challenge and I tried my level best to pay equal attention to all the seven sections. One thing that I was consistently doing while preparation was giving multiple mocks from PracticeMock platform since I have this habit of analyzing my knowledge on the basis of marks.

What were the challenging domains for you while preparing for NABARD Grade A?

Agriculture was quite challenging for me, so I curated a strategy to tackle difficulties. Till my second attempt I figured out what exactly they ask eg. Animal husbandry, soil sciences, basics of agriculture, irrigation, agricultural schemes, current affairs about ministry of agriculture, etc.

I was keenly focussed on all three regulatory bodies including NABARD, SEBI, RBI. In one I reached till mains and the other till interviews so I was focussed on maintaining balance between the three.

I am hoping that my experience and struggles could be of some assistance to anyone preparing for regulatory bodies.