Barclays Internship Experience 2025
Got selected for the Barclays Summer Internship 2026
through the 2025 on campus in VIT!
Honestly, this was my first internship, so yeah, I was pretty damn excited!!
So instead of making this another boring “interview experience” post,
I’ll just tell you exactly what happened( like I’d tell a junior )..
1,200–1,300 students applied, and only 13 eventually got selected.
So yeah, the competition was crazy.
The Process:
1. Resume Shortlisting
2. OA
3. PPT
4. Tech + HR Interview (onsite)
5. HR Interview (onsite)
6. Surprise GD
Barclays is a multinational bank with strong conversion rate to full time SDE!
1.Applied through a Google Form shared by TPO
Shortlisted — 160 peeps (not exact)
This round was purely shortlisting-based. The company filtered candidates on the basis of CGPA (9.1+) , Resume , 12th grade .
IG my Barclays Ab Initio Program made a huge difference.
After getting shortlisted, I immediately reached out to seniors who had already gone through the process.
The common answer was basically:
“Bro, prepare DSA, SQL and OOPs. And don’t take SQL lightly.”
So that’s what I did.
I practiced SQL on Hacker Rank + LeetCode and solved a
sh*t tone DSA problems on LeetCode to make me go crazyy.
2. OA
Honestly?
The OA felt like the hardest elimination round.
It was a 45-minute HackerRank test, conducted offline at college.
There were 25 questions.
20 MCQs
Mostly OOPs and code-output questions involving:
- C++
- Java
- Python
- Pseudocode
So basically, you get a piece of code and they ask:
“What the hell is the output?”
5 SQL Questions
The SQL questions variedd
One of mine was a filtering question where I had to display only October data, which I solved using LIKE.
The biggest challenge wasn’t even the difficulty.
It was “time”
25 questions in 45 minutes means you can’t sit there fighting one question for 10 minutes.
TIP: Manage your time aggressively.
One thing I found useful
The OA pattern can change!
For example, in the April 2025 Barclays drive, the OA pattern was :
25 MCQs + 1 difficult string-based DSA question + 3 SQL questions involving joins, subqueries, and complex date/time conditions.
So don’t prepare assuming you’ll get the exact same pattern
Shortlisted after OA: 22 students
3. Pre-placement Talk: PPT
NGL The PPT was actually pretty funnn..
It was interactive and engaging,
even when we were sleep deprived, they made us laugh constantly.
It wasn’t the usual boring corporate presentation.
There were 17 panelists, and they introduced themselves and talked about the skills they were looking for.
So PAY ATTENTION during the PPT
Note: Always ask questions at the end. It makes you stand out.
Each panel have only one panelists.
Contrary to my expectations of just one interview round,
we were surprised to learn there would be 2 rounds happening back-to-back on the same day.
3. Interview1 ( HR )
This was my first face-to-face interview.
I was nervous initially, but after the pre-placement talk, I managed to calm myself down.
The interview order was changed, so HR happened first, even though it usually comes later.
I entered into the interview room and was quite politely was asked to sit down. The interviewer was really friendly and made me comfortable.
It started with the classic:
“Tell me about yourself.”
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I used this opportunity to highlight my Barclays Ab Initio Program.
Then they asked about my open-source experience, which was on my resume, followed by basic DSA questions.
Things like:
- Linked Lists
- Queues
- Their real-life applications
I was asked to pick one project from my resume, explain it in detail, and draw a block diagram.
After that, I had to write some basic pseudocode related to data visualization.
Then came a bunch of behavioral questions:
How do you handle conflict?
How do you deal with anger?
What do you do when there’s a misunderstanding?
How do you stay calm under pressure?
One question stood out because it was completely unexpected:
How would you handle a situation where a teammate makes a serious mistake and you need to address it , but the person is of a
“ different sexual orientation ”
It was meant to test empathy and whether you can handle sensitive situations with maturity.
Talk about your experiences, challenges, decisions and lessons ~ the things they can’t see just by reading your resume.
Remember:
They already have your resume.
So don’t just repeat what’s written there.
Also, Don’t fake your projects.
They can tell.
Be ready for:
“Why did you use this?”
“What went wrong?”
“What would you do differently?”
“What was YOUR contribution?”
“Why did you choose this approach?”
“What did you actually learn from this project?”
Shortlisted — 19 peeps
Duration — 45 min
4. Interview2 — Technical + HR
Now this was the “boss fight”
Easily one of the toughest rounds.
The discussion jumped between resume-based , behavioral questions and within minutes the discussion moved deep into technical territory.
What the round focused on:
- CS Fundamentals — OS , DBMS , OOPs
- Core DSA — linked lists, logic-based problems
- SQL — queries, reasoning, edge cases
- XML-related code questions
- Basics of React.js and Node.js
- General development knowledge
Along with that their were behavioral questions :-
1] Which project are you most proud about?
- To which I answered a industry sponsored project — AI Based Soil Health Predictor
2] Why is this project so important to you?
3] Were their any issues that arose during execution?
4] How did you handle then !
Finally after more than one whole hour (70 mins) of discussion the interview ended with a positive note.
As much as we were delighted for clearing Round 2, we were nervous about what was holding next.
At this point, I was like:
“Bas. Ho gaya.”
Soon, Panelists arrived..
They began by asking if we were comfortable that it might take a while to complete process and we may have to stay late.
(What was waiting ahead we could have never been able to guess.)
Later, they continued by saying that after the announcement, we should not focus on questions like “Why was I selected?” or “Why wasn’t someone else selected?”
It was quite vague, and we assumed they were about to announce the Round 2 results.
Little did we know that wasn’t the case.
we all were asked to join in audii .
Their was a “ Surprised GD “ round
5. Surprised GD
All the panelists started by facing us.
At this point, everyone was nervous.
The panelists started asking students about their experience throughout the day and taking feedback.
A few students answered, and then they were asked to come forward.
And then they announced:
“These students are selected.”
Everyone else is rejected.
For a second, I genuinely thought:
“So… we didn’t make it?”
Then they turned towards those of us who were still seated.
They said it had been a tough call, and they had a hard time deciding.
And then came the line:
“You guys will also be there for the picture. You guys are also selected.”
I WAS IN SHOCK.
Months of prep
endless nights of debugging
enough dsa to make me have a toxic relationship with leetcode
and finally ……..
I DID IT
I cracked my first internship…..
Tips : They are here to hire us, so be honest, be yourself and answer confidently.
Only 13 students selected out of 1200 ( ~1% )
Truly grateful to Barclays, VIT Pune, and the CS(AI) department.
I’m especially proud to say that I was one of only four students selected from my department for the Barclays Summer Internship 2026.
