Barclays Assessment Tests

Barclays Situational Judgement Test

1. Question 1 of 10

   You are a graduate in a Barclays branch. Your team leader is at lunch and one colleague is serving the counter. Three people are waiting: one to pay in a shop’s daily deposit, one whose card was stolen abroad an hour ago, and one collecting a printed statement. Only the card report can stop further money leaving an account. Your own login is locked out until the technology desk resets it at two o’clock, and branch rules say nobody works under another colleague’s login. Your team leader’s terminal is open behind you. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Ask the colleague on the counter to block the stolen card from her own login now, and serve the deposit and the statement yourself while she does it.
   2. Report the stolen card yourself as soon as the technology desk restores your login at two o'clock, and serve the deposit and the statement in the meantime.
   3. Block the stolen card from your team leader's open terminal behind you, since it is signed in already and the customer should not have to wait until two o'clock.
   4. Explain to all three that your login is down until two o'clock, and ask the colleague on the counter to see them in the order they arrived once she is free.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: A. Ask the colleague on the counter to block the stolen card from her own login now, and serve the deposit and the statement yourself while she does it.

   Least effective: C. Block the stolen card from your team leader's open terminal behind you, since it is signed in already and the customer should not have to wait until two o'clock.

   B: Delays the one step that cannot be undone: two more hours of spending is the only loss in this queue that no later action recovers, and the statement was never going anywhere.

   C: Breaches a stated control: the branch rule on logins exists so every action has a name against it, and a customer's urgency is exactly the pressure the rule is written for.

   D: Hands on a queue without ordering it: the card report reaches the same colleague as one item among three, so the only urgent thing in the branch waits its turn behind a statement.

   The most effective response is to ask the colleague on the counter to block the stolen card from her own login, and to serve the deposit and the statement yourself. It protects the only loss that grows while you decide, it uses a route the branch rules already allow, and it keeps the other two customers moving. It beats reporting the stolen card yourself once the technology desk restores your login, because the account stays open to spending for two more hours to save you asking a colleague. It beats explaining that your login is down and asking her to see all three in the order they arrived, because that hands on a queue without saying which item is urgent, so the card report waits behind a printed statement. The least effective response is to block the card from your team leader’s open terminal. Waiting is slow and handing the queue on is vague, but both stay inside the rules, whereas working under somebody else’s login breaks a stated control and leaves the action recorded against a colleague who was at lunch. The principle: protect the harm that cannot be undone, and do it by a route you are allowed to use. Service, one of Barclays’ values, asks you to put the people and businesses we serve at the centre of what you do.

2. Question 2 of 10

   You are a graduate in a Barclays payments operations team. A corporate customer’s payment file has been loaded three times this morning, so the same twelve payments now sit in the system three times over. Two of the duplicates have already been released to the receiving banks. The team’s usual view is that duplicates wash out by the end of the day, and the checklist says to raise duplicates with the team that sent the file before any of them are released. Your supervisor is at her desk. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Tell your supervisor now that two duplicate payments have already left, with the references and the customer's name, and start holding the ten that have not gone yet.
   2. Message the sending team with the duplicate references and ask them to confirm which payments they meant to make, then decide what to raise once they have replied.
   3. Start the recall process on the two released payments yourself, and tell your supervisor about the file once you know whether the recalls have actually worked.
   4. Pass the whole file back to the team that sent it and ask them to work out which of the twelve payments have already been released to the receiving banks.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: A. Tell your supervisor now that two duplicate payments have already left, with the references and the customer's name, and start holding the ten that have not gone yet.

   Least effective: D. Pass the whole file back to the team that sent it and ask them to work out which of the twelve payments have already been released to the receiving banks.

   B: Waits for somebody else before deciding: the two released payments are already outside the bank, and the reply that would tell you to act may arrive after the working day has closed them.

   C: Substitutes your own remedy for the escalation: the recall may be the right step, but attempting it alone means the customer's exposure is known only to you while it is happening.

   D: Passes the problem on without owning it: the duplicates started with the sending team, but the checklist stops at duplicates that have not been released, and the two that have are in your queue.

   The most effective response is to tell your supervisor now that two duplicate payments have already left, with the references and the customer’s name attached, and to hold the ten that have not gone. Something has left the bank that should not have, the person who can decide what happens next is at her desk, and the ten still inside are recoverable while you talk. It beats messaging the sending team and deciding what to raise once they reply, because that puts a live exposure behind somebody else’s inbox. It beats starting the recall yourself and telling your supervisor once you know whether it worked, because the customer’s money is outside the bank for as long as only you know about it. The least effective response is to pass the whole file back to the team that sent it. Waiting and self-help are both slow, but they keep the exception with somebody who can see it, whereas handing it back gives the problem to a team that cannot see your queue and leaves nobody watching the released payments. The checklist route it invokes stops at duplicates that have not been released, and two of these have. The principle: an exception the team treats as routine is still an exception once part of it has left the building, and it goes to somebody who can act, not back to where it came from. Empower, one of the three behaviours in Barclays’ Mindset, asks you to escalate issues appropriately rather than work an exception alone.

3. Question 3 of 10

   You are a graduate in a client support team in corporate banking at Barclays. A client’s finance manager has emailed you, copying your director, to say your weekly cash summary is always late and half of it is wrong. The summary is built from a balances file her own team sends, which has arrived after the cut-off five weeks running. You have a scheduled call with her tomorrow, and your director has asked for nothing beyond a reply. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Reply to her and your director together, setting out when the balances file arrives against when the summary is due, and offer to agree a workable timetable on tomorrow's call.
   2. Stop copying her into the weekly summary after that email, and send it to the client's other contacts instead, so that she has nothing further to complain about.
   3. Reply to the finance manager alone, apologise for the summary being late, and leave her team's file out of it so that the complaint is not made any worse than it is.
   4. Reply to your director first with the dates her team's file arrived, and ask him to take the accuracy point up with the finance manager on your behalf.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: A. Reply to her and your director together, setting out when the balances file arrives against when the summary is due, and offer to agree a workable timetable on tomorrow's call.

   Least effective: B. Stop copying her into the weekly summary after that email, and send it to the client's other contacts instead, so that she has nothing further to complain about.

   B: Withdraws from a client after a complaint: the person who raised the problem is removed from the thing she was complaining about, which ends the emails and ends the relationship with them.

   C: Buys peace with an incomplete account: the lateness has a cause you both need on the table, and an apology that hides it guarantees a sixth late summary next week.

   D: Routes a reply upwards that you could make yourself: the client wrote to you, and an answer arriving from your director turns a working problem into a matter between senior people.

   The most effective response is to reply to her and your director together, setting out when the balances file arrives against when the summary is due, and offering to agree a workable timetable on tomorrow’s call. Everyone who read the complaint reads the answer, the facts go out without anybody being called careless, and the call is used for the fix. It beats replying to the finance manager alone and leaving her team’s file out of it, because the apology then stands as the whole explanation and next week’s summary is late for the same reason. It beats replying to your director first and asking him to take the accuracy point up on your behalf, because a message you could send yourself becomes a conversation between senior people. The least effective response is to stop copying her into the weekly summary and send it to the client’s other contacts. A soft apology and an escalation are both answers of a kind, whereas quietly dropping her from the distribution answers a complaint by removing the complainant, and she will find out. The principle: answer a complaint to everyone who saw it, with the facts and without a culprit. Respect, one of Barclays’ values, asks you to trust those you work with and value everyone’s contribution, the person who complained included.

4. Question 4 of 10

   You are a graduate in a Barclays technology team. Every incident gets a timeline entry, and the team’s monthly reliability figure counts only incidents that ran over thirty minutes. This morning’s outage ran forty minutes from the first alert. In the review, a colleague says the clock should really start when the alert was acknowledged, which would put the outage at twenty-five minutes, and he asks you to update the entry because you wrote it. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Agree with the colleague that the clock should start at acknowledgement from now on, leave this morning's forty minutes exactly as recorded, and settle the new basis between the two of you.
   2. Leave the entry as it was recorded, and put the question of when the clock starts to the whole team, so any change to the rule applies to every incident rather than this one.
   3. Leave the incident timing exactly as it was, and stay out of the review discussion, since the monthly reliability figure belongs to the team leader rather than to you.
   4. Amend the timeline entry so the outage records as twenty-five minutes, and tell the colleague it is done before the monthly figures are pulled tomorrow morning.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: B. Leave the entry as it was recorded, and put the question of when the clock starts to the whole team, so any change to the rule applies to every incident rather than this one.

   Least effective: D. Amend the timeline entry so the outage records as twenty-five minutes, and tell the colleague it is done before the monthly figures are pulled tomorrow morning.

   A: Settles a shared rule between two people: the timing basis feeds a measure the whole team is judged on, so a definition agreed privately with the person who asked for it is not a definition the team has adopted.

   C: Sits out a question the team is actually asking: when the clock should start is a fair thing to settle, and the person who wrote the entry is the one with something useful to say.

   D: Alters a record so a measure clears its threshold: the outage lasted forty minutes whatever the entry now says, and the reliability figure stops describing the month it is reporting on.

   The most effective response is to leave the entry as recorded and put the question of when the clock starts to the whole team. The measure only means something if the rule is the same for every incident, and a definition worth changing is worth changing in the open and in advance. It beats agreeing the new basis privately with the colleague and leaving this morning’s forty minutes as recorded, because a rule two people settle between themselves is not a rule the team has adopted. It beats leaving the timing exactly as it was and staying out of the discussion, because the question of when the clock starts is a reasonable one and you are the person who wrote the entry. The least effective response is to amend the entry so the outage records as twenty-five minutes. Agreeing the change between yourselves and saying nothing are both weak, but neither makes the record untrue, whereas an amended entry means the monthly figure no longer describes what happened. The principle: argue about the rule in front of the team, and never settle the argument by editing the record it is measured from.

5. Question 5 of 10

   You are an analyst on a Barclays transaction team. Another analyst and you have produced different working capital figures for the same client pack, and she has told you flatly that yours is wrong and that she is not changing hers. The associate wants one figure in the deck for a client call in an hour. Neither of you has been back through the assumptions behind the two versions, and you and she are on this deal together for another month. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Present the two figures as settled to the associate and put her number in the deck, so that the argument does not reach him in the hour before the client call.
   2. Go through the two models with her on the assumptions where they differ, settle what the client's own numbers support, and take anything still unresolved to the associate before the call.
   3. Ask the associate to choose between the two figures now, explaining that you and she disagree and that the assumptions behind each version have not been compared yet.
   4. Use her number in the deck for now, and go back through the two versions properly after the client call, when there is time to work through the assumptions.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: B. Go through the two models with her on the assumptions where they differ, settle what the client's own numbers support, and take anything still unresolved to the associate before the call.

   Least effective: A. Present the two figures as settled to the associate and put her number in the deck, so that the argument does not reach him in the hour before the client call.

   A: States as fact something neither of you has checked: the associate is told the difference is closed when nobody has opened it, and the number goes to the client with a reconciliation behind it that never happened.

   C: Hands a technical difference upward as a dispute: the associate can pick a number but cannot know which assumptions are right, so an hour that could have closed the gap is spent choosing sides.

   D: Defers the reconciliation past the moment it counts: the figure the client hears is the one that mattered, and reopening it afterwards costs more than an hour of work now.

   The most effective response is to go through the two models with her on the assumptions where they differ, settle what the client’s own numbers support, and take anything still unresolved to the associate. It treats the disagreement as a question about assumptions rather than about who is right, it uses the hour that exists, and it leaves the associate a real decision if one is still needed. It beats asking the associate to choose between the two figures now, because he can pick a number but cannot know which assumptions stand behind it. It beats using her number for now and going back through the versions after the call, because the figure the client hears is the one that counts and unpicking it later is dearer than an hour today. The least effective response is to present the two figures to the associate as settled and put her number in the deck. Escalating early and deferring the work are both weaker uses of the hour, but neither tells anybody something untrue, whereas calling a difference closed that nobody has looked at puts an unchecked number in front of a client on your word. The principle: close a disagreement on the assumptions, and never close it by saying it is closed. Excellence, one of Barclays’ values, sets high standards for what we do, and an unreconciled figure in a client deck does not meet them.

6. Question 6 of 10

   You are an adviser in a Barclays contact centre. A customer calls to say her rent direct debit came out twice this morning and her account is now short. Your screen shows one payment leaving today. She says her landlord’s records show two, and she has childcare to pay for this afternoon. Going through the pending items and yesterday’s file takes a few minutes with her on the line. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Explain that the record on your screen is the version the bank can act on, and ask her to post in her landlord's statement so that somebody can look at the two together.
   2. Go through the pending items and yesterday's file with her on the line, tell her what you find either way, and raise a payment query so the second debit is traced.
   3. Assume the second entry is a charge from the landlord's own system rather than a payment out of her account, and suggest she rings back if it has not cleared by Monday.
   4. Log a formal complaint on her behalf straight away so that the double payment is on record, and tell her the complaints team will be in touch within five working days.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: B. Go through the pending items and yesterday's file with her on the line, tell her what you find either way, and raise a payment query so the second debit is traced.

   Least effective: C. Assume the second entry is a charge from the landlord's own system rather than a payment out of her account, and suggest she rings back if it has not cleared by Monday.

   A: Answers the system's question instead of hers: she needs to know today whether the money is coming back, and a posted statement reaches nobody before the childcare payment is due.

   C: Declines to check something checkable: the file that would settle whether there were one payment or two is open in front of you, and she is asked to wait four days on a guess.

   D: Reaches for the slowest process available: a complaint records that she is unhappy, but the few minutes of checking that might have found her money today are not done.

   The most effective response is to go through the pending items and yesterday’s file with her on the line, tell her what you find either way, and raise a payment query so the second debit is traced. It costs the minutes it costs, it treats her account of her own money as worth checking, and it leaves a trace somebody can follow if the check finds nothing. It beats explaining that the record on your screen is the version the bank can act on and asking her to post her landlord’s statement in, because she needs an answer before this afternoon and the post does not deliver one. It beats logging a formal complaint straight away and telling her the complaints team will be in touch, because five working days is slower than the problem. The least effective response is to assume the second entry is a charge from the landlord’s own system and suggest she rings back on Monday. The other two at least do something, whereas this decides an open question in the bank’s favour without opening the file that would answer it. The principle: when a customer’s account of her money disagrees with the screen, check before you choose which one is right. Service, one of Barclays’ values, asks for empathy and humility, which here means treating her account of her own money as worth the minutes.

7. Question 7 of 10

   You are a graduate in a Barclays business banking support team. A customer whose account you spent a fortnight getting reopened has posted you a card and a fifty pound store voucher, addressed to you by name. The staff code says colleagues may not accept gifts from customers, and that any offer is recorded on the gifts register whether or not it is accepted. Nothing on the customer’s account is still open, and your team leader is away all week. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Accept the voucher and use it, since it arrived unasked for, the work it thanks you for is finished, and sending a present back would embarrass a customer who meant well.
   2. Put the voucher into the collection tin for the team's charity, so that nobody gains from it personally, and leave the register until your team leader is back next week.
   3. Post the voucher back to the customer with a short note explaining that colleagues cannot accept gifts, and record the offer on the gifts register the same day.
   4. Return the voucher when the customer is next in, explaining the code face to face, and write nothing on the register on the grounds that the gift was declined anyway.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: C. Post the voucher back to the customer with a short note explaining that colleagues cannot accept gifts, and record the offer on the gifts register the same day.

   Least effective: A. Accept the voucher and use it, since it arrived unasked for, the work it thanks you for is finished, and sending a present back would embarrass a customer who meant well.

   A: Takes a gift the code forbids: whether it was asked for is not the test the code sets, and a colleague who keeps it has been paid by a customer for doing the job.

   B: Treats where the gift ends up as the whole question: the code asks for a refusal and an entry, and a charity tin answers neither while the customer still believes it was welcome.

   D: Records nothing because nothing was kept: the register exists to show what was offered as well as what was refused, and a refusal nobody can see protects nobody later.

   The most effective response is to post the voucher back to the customer with a short note explaining that colleagues cannot accept gifts, and to record the offer on the gifts register the same day. It does both things the code asks for, it does them while your team leader is away rather than after, and it leaves the customer thanked and the file clean. It beats putting the voucher into the team’s charity tin and leaving the register until next week, because giving it away is not refusing it and the customer is never told. It beats returning the voucher face to face and writing nothing on the register, because the register is meant to show what was offered, not only what was kept. The least effective response is to accept the voucher and use it. Both of the others get the voucher away from you, whereas keeping it means a colleague has been paid by a customer for work the bank already pays for, which is the thing the code is written to prevent. The principle: a gift is refused and recorded, and being offered it unasked is the ordinary case rather than the exception. Integrity, one of Barclays’ values, asks for honesty, courage, transparency and fairness in all we do, and the register is where the transparency lives.

8. Question 8 of 10

   You are a graduate in a Barclays risk and controls team. Each month the team sends evidence requests to about forty desks, and roughly half of them land with the wrong desk and have to be chased by email. Everybody works around it. Going through the request form yesterday, you found the cause: a dropdown that still defaults to a desk which was split in two last year. Nobody has asked you to look at this. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Change the dropdown default on the form yourself this afternoon, and say nothing about it, since the fix is a small one and the chasing stops as soon as the requests arrive correctly.
   2. Post in the team channel that requests keep going astray because the desks cannot fill a simple form in properly, and carry on rerouting the ones that reach you.
   3. Write up the default with two recent examples, take it to the colleague who owns the form, and offer to test the change with one desk before next month's requests go out.
   4. Raise it at the monthly team meeting so the whole team can decide whether the form is worth changing at all, and keep chasing the misdirected requests until then.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: C. Write up the default with two recent examples, take it to the colleague who owns the form, and offer to test the change with one desk before next month's requests go out.

   Least effective: B. Post in the team channel that requests keep going astray because the desks cannot fill a simple form in properly, and carry on rerouting the ones that reach you.

   A: Edits a shared form without its owner: the diagnosis is right, but a quiet change to something forty desks use leaves nobody able to explain next month's results if it is wrong.

   B: Blames the desks for the form: forty teams are told publicly that they are careless, when the cause you found sits in a dropdown nobody outside this team can see.

   D: Books a decision that has already been made: the cause is known and the fix is one field, so another month of chasing buys a discussion nobody needs to have.

   The most effective response is to write up the default with two recent examples, take it to the colleague who owns the form, and offer to test the change with one desk before next month’s requests go out. It goes to the person who can actually change the form, it arrives with evidence rather than a complaint, and it offers the work rather than the problem. It beats changing the dropdown yourself this afternoon and saying nothing, because a silent edit to something forty desks use leaves nobody able to explain next month if it turns out wrong. It beats raising it at the monthly meeting so the team can decide whether the form is worth changing, because the cause is already known and a month of chasing buys a discussion instead of a fix. The least effective response is to post in the team channel that the desks cannot fill a simple form in properly. Fixing it quietly is hasty and waiting for the meeting is slow, but both aim at the form, whereas this tells forty teams they are careless for a fault they cannot see. The principle: when you have found the cause, take it to whoever owns the fix, and never spend other people’s competence explaining it. Drive, one of the three behaviours in Barclays’ Mindset, asks you to act with ownership and accountability and to champion change, including where nobody has asked you to look.

9. Question 9 of 10

   You are a graduate in a Barclays trade support team. A system outage has left you and one colleague matching settlement instructions by hand, at three times the usual volume, for the fourth hour running. The desk head wants a status message every hour. Twenty minutes ago you realised that the manual route you have both been using skips the confirmation step, so about a dozen instructions have gone out unconfirmed. The queue is still growing. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Keep working the queue at the same pace and give the hourly status as a volume count, without mentioning the dozen instructions that have gone out unconfirmed.
   2. Stop matching new instructions and work back through the dozen unconfirmed ones first, so that the mistakes are cleared before the next status message is due.
   3. Confirm the dozen instructions yourself as the queue allows, and put the whole thing to the desk head at the end of the shift, when you can give her a complete picture.
   4. Put the dozen unconfirmed instructions into the next hourly status with their references, ask for a second pair of hands to clear them, and keep the queue moving meanwhile.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: D. Put the dozen unconfirmed instructions into the next hourly status with their references, ask for a second pair of hands to clear them, and keep the queue moving meanwhile.

   Least effective: A. Keep working the queue at the same pace and give the hourly status as a volume count, without mentioning the dozen instructions that have gone out unconfirmed.

   A: Withholds what the desk head is asking the hour for: a status that reports only volume reads as a team coping, so nobody starts the recovery while the same dozen sit unconfirmed.

   B: Trades the growing queue for the smaller problem: the twelve matter, but stopping the only manual line running lets four hours of backlog become six while two people tidy.

   C: Saves the news until it is tidy: the desk head is being asked for an hourly view precisely because the position is moving, and a complete picture at six is worth less than a partial one now.

   The most effective response is to put the dozen unconfirmed instructions into the next hourly status with their references, ask for a second pair of hands to clear them, and keep the queue moving. It uses a channel that already exists, it treats an error made under pressure as information the desk needs rather than as something about you, and it asks for the help the fourth hour plainly requires. It beats stopping the matching to work back through the dozen first, because the only manual line running goes quiet and the backlog grows behind it. It beats confirming them yourself and putting the whole thing to the desk head at the end of the shift, because an hourly status is asked for when the position is moving and a tidy picture at six is worth less than a rough one now. The least effective response is to give the hourly status as a volume count with no mention of the unconfirmed instructions. Both of the others act on the problem, whereas a status reporting volume alone reads as a team coping, so the one person who could put more hands on it never learns there is anything to fix. The principle: under sustained pressure the status message is where your own errors go, not the place you keep them out of. Empower, one of the three behaviours in Barclays’ Mindset, asks you to escalate issues appropriately and to learn from failures, and the hourly status is the channel for both.

10. Question 10 of 10

    You are a graduate in a Barclays client reporting team. Last week a reporting file went by email to the wrong recipient. The line the team has given clients who ask is that no client data was affected, and nobody has checked that against what the file actually held. A client has now written to you asking, in plain terms, whether her data was in it. The file list sits on your drive, and going through it would take an afternoon. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

    1. Ask the colleague who sent the file whether the client's data was in it, and reply with whatever he remembers, so that she has an answer from us before the end of the day.
    2. Assure the client in writing that no client data was affected, repeating the line the team has given everybody else who asked, and leave the file list unopened on your drive.
    3. Hold the reply back until the formal incident report is published next month, so that the client is given one confirmed account rather than two different ones.
    4. Tell the client you are checking the file list against her records, give her a date for the answer, and then work through the list whatever it turns out to show.
    Show the answer

    Most effective: D. Tell the client you are checking the file list against her records, give her a date for the answer, and then work through the list whatever it turns out to show.

    Least effective: B. Assure the client in writing that no client data was affected, repeating the line the team has given everybody else who asked, and leave the file list unopened on your drive.

    A: Answers a written question from memory: he sent the file in a hurry a week ago, and his recollection reaches the client with the weight of a formal reply behind it.

    B: Gives an assurance nobody has checked: the sentence is repeated often enough to feel established, but the only document that could make it true is sitting unopened on your drive.

    C: Waits for a document the client did not ask for: she asked a narrow question about her own data, and a month of silence is a worse answer than a partial one this week.

    The most effective response is to tell the client you are checking the file list against her records, give her a date for the answer, and then work through the list whatever it turns out to show. She has asked a question the bank can answer, an afternoon is what answering it costs, and a date turns an open worry into a commitment. It beats asking the colleague who sent the file what he remembers and replying with that, because a week-old recollection goes to the client carrying the weight of a formal answer. It beats holding the reply back until the incident report is published next month, because she asked a narrow question about her own data and a month of silence answers it worse than a partial reply this week. The least effective response is to assure her in writing that no client data was affected while the file list stays unopened. A second-hand answer and a slow one are both attempts at the question, whereas repeating a line the team has never checked tells a client something the bank does not know, and the document that would settle it is on your own drive. The principle: a sentence everybody repeats is still unverified, and a direct question is where that stops. Integrity, one of Barclays’ values, asks for honesty, courage, transparency and fairness, and an assurance nobody has checked is none of them.