Vaibhav Rawat AIR 25 Interview Strategy
I have not been active on any social media for a while now. Hence, I could not reply to the messages.
I hope that you are enjoying life and are on track to achieve your goals.
This post is for all those who are appearing for the personality test a.k.a UPSC interview stage.
Like all other steps in the civil service examination process, the final stage of the UPSC CSE, i.e., the personality test, is also subjective. However, in hindsight, I can say with some certainty that it can be prepared structurally.
I tried to prepare in a certain way. I am sharing that. If you find something undigestible or perhaps offensive, then ignore it. Adopt what suits you.
1. I went through the official CSE notification issued by UPSC, where they list out the criteria for judging a candidate in the interview.
2. I wrote them down and thought about each one of them. What did they stand for? What did UPSC expect from me? Why did UPSC expect me to have this trait? So on and so forth.
3. These youtube videos helped me in finding answers to the above questions:
•Vikas Divyakirti sir's interview prep playlist (Drishti IAS channel)
•Officers IAS - Israel sir's lectures
4. I enrolled in Samkalp's interview program. They conduct lectures on the basics of interview prep. Do not miss them. In my case, I did not need informative lectures on general topics. I thought that I had enough (just enough to discuss it intelligently with 5 learned senior citizens of the country) knowledge on the topics of GS. Although this does not mean I did not read anything. But, I did not take any special course that covered current affairs for the interview. Information can anyway be consumed in the last week also. Anyway, the point is that first things first. One must understand what is expected of them. I required clarity concerning the roles, responsibilities, and limitations of a civil servant. Samkalp conducts sessions with retired and serving officers. They helped me in getting a clearer mind.
5. With basics in place, the time came to start working towards achieving the set objectives. It is important I think to go through this process. It will help you to handle any unforeseen situation on the D-day. I got a fairly good idea of what I needed to project in the interview. Let's talk about the objectives first. Later, we can talk about the method to attain these objectives.
It is interesting to note that civil servants by the nature of their profession are leaders. Whichever organization one joins, one will be posted as a manager of that particular organization. In the IAS and the IPS, one is immediately expected to handle tehsil/sub-district level administration. One has a team at their disposal. One has to handle the finances of that organization. Not many professions offer this opportunity to everyone engaged in that profession. For example, in any team sport, only selected one or two get to lead the team out of n players (n being 11 for cricket or football for instance). Being a cricketer does not guarantee that you will get this position of responsibility. But, being a civil servant, you can be certain that you will have this opportunity/responsibility. An opportunity to lead your team. An opportunity to inspire others. As a matter of duty, you will have to attain the goals of the organization. Going back to our analogy of cricket, you are responsible and accountable for the team's performance. You will have to make your team win. But of course, you can't always do it alone. You will have to teach your team how to win. You have to create winners by passing on the winner mindset. You will have this amazing opportunity to leave a legacy behind. The attitude that you carry is all that matters, my friend.
Now, imagine you are sitting in the UPSC panel. And then judge yourself, do you carry this attitude. Would you select your clone for the job that we discussed above. Do you possess leadership qualities? I shall post later on what I mean when I say leadership qualities.
Knowledge comes secondary.
Your background is irrelevant.
Your looks don't matter; your personality does.
A smile is all that it takes to appear cheerful.
Your first impression matters - They would want to see a well-groomed and respectful person having basic etiquettes of saying thank you, sorry, please with a smile.
The most important quality is the ability to answer questions with poise. Please note that it is 'answering' and not speaking. This means that whatever you are speaking should be a precise and logical answer to the question asked by the examiner.
One must avoid speaking incorrectly and also speaking unnecessary information / giving inapt solutions. The former case is easier to avoid. Most people prefer saying, "I don't know" in case they are unsure. It's not a bad idea, but we can optimize this further. More on this later. I hope you are following the larger idea governing this process of structuring our preparation. To identify vital elements and devote time to them first. Optimizations such as this are meant for the last stage of the preparation. We need to build our base first.
Latter is difficult to master. It is certainly a complicated thing to discern what is a precise and logical answer. It has to be relevant, practical, and politically correct. Most importantly it should be well thought out. Should not contain logical inconsistencies. It takes emotional intelligence to be able to understand what the examiner is asking. With one's answer, one should be able to convince the examiner of one's intelligence.
This step took a lot of practice. Two things helped me in this.
• Peer mocks that we used to do online over zoom/meet.
• Samkalp's mock in group; where one can witness mock interview of others.
Learn from others. Adopt and improve.