Dear Aspirant Officers, many times the Board puts you in very tricky and difficult situations for which there are no clear right and wrong answers. If one can go through such situations successfully, the chance of scoring very well in the Personality Test is almost a certainty. Hence here I am discussing few situations.
YOUR HEIGHT, WEIGHT, AGE etc.
Sometimes the Board members can really be after you. They really want to make you fumble, to put you under tremendous pressure. They will ask you a question which only you can answer and in fact you should answer but most likely you would not be able to answer. For example, they can ask you to mention your exact height in inches and in centimeters. Similarly they can ask you about your exact weight in kilograms and in pounds. On the same analogy you can be asked your exact age on that day. That means how many years; months and days old are you as of today. Be prepared for all types of questions like this.
DETAILS OF THE DAY YOU APPEAR FOR THE PERSONALITY TEST
In certain occasions, they are really in the mood of putting you on the backfoot from the start itself. So they bombard you with a lot of weird questions like the number of stairs you took to the interview room, number of flower pots along the way, number of the car/taxi/bus by which you reached, number of buttons on your shirt, color of your shirt, tie, suit, saree, etc. The question is how to handle such situation.
One way is that you start counting and observing each and every thing that find on your way. That is almost impossible (unless you are already in that habit). Also it will cause you unnecessary stress on an already stressful day. So I don't think that this is a very practical approach.
Another approach is that you simply say "Sorry Sir I didn't notice/didn't calculate: Though this is true but perhaps not the best. I am saying so because though the Board might appreciate that you are not trying to lie but they can be a bit disappointed as some of these things you should prepare for the day as there are chances of being asked.
Hence I would suggest an approach which I feel can be a good way of dealing such a situation. In this, firstly you answer should be situation based. For example it is easier and, to an extent, desirable that you should know certain things like the number of the vehicle (from the perspective of security) or the number of buttons (awareness about the self). For such items you should prepare beforehand and should reply to the Board. They might ask you "Is this your daily practice or you have specially done for today?” If you have a slight habit like that, you can say "Sir, generally I take a notice of these things as they are important." But if you have prepared it only for that day then you should say frankly “Sir, as I was expecting that the Board might ask me such a question, I have made a conscious effort today.” Such an answer would reflect your honesty.
There are certain other things like "the number of flower pots on way" etc. Now, generally we don't observe these things and nor are they expected to be noticed as they don't serve any purpose. For such questions, you can simply say "Sir, I didn't calculate." They might ask you the follow-up question "Doesn't it reflect that you are very casual person not aware of the things around your To this a probable reply can be "Sir, though I am not aware of this particular thing, but I do keep a track of the important things around me like the number of the vehicle in which I have come, the time it took for me to reach here. The roads that I had to follow to reach here.” Such an answer would reflect that you are aware of your surroundings as you have mentioned them various things that you know; that you are a smart person who knows what to filter; that you are an honest person as you didn't lie on the things that you didn't know.
YOURWEAKNESSES
Quite often a very tricky question is asked by the Board "What are your weaknesses?”
While answering such a question, the candidates often make one or the following mistakes:
- The candidate will try to suggest that he does not have any serious weakness or
- The candidate will say something as a weakness which will render him unsuitable or undesirable for the service, for example "I can't trust my women colleagues at my workplace.”
- Yet another kind of mistake that the candidates often make is to tell, what I term as a 'positive weakness', to the Board. For example I'm a perfectionist.
Now before understanding that why the above mentioned answers are not the proper reply and what should be a proper reply for this question, let us first try to ponder a bit over the reason for the Board to ask this question to you. Are they really interested in knowing your weaknesses? I think not. That could be one of the factors but the focus of the Board to ask such a question is to observe that how well can you analyze your own self and that whether you have the courage to say something which is negative about your personality.
Now having the knowledge of the purpose behind the question let us try to understand the flaws in the above mentioned 3 replies.
Answer 1: Dear friends, with the hand on your heart tell me have you ever come across a person who is totally perfect; who has no weaknesses? I think your answer will be no. So, when you also belong to the same planet and the same humanity, how could you be different? You have and have many weak nesses. This is the worst possible answer but unfortunately still attempted by many.
Answer 2: Though it is desired that you should not tell a tie or should not fake during the Personality Test that does not mean that you cannot do some sort of filtering of various aspects of your personality. A person can have a number of weaknesses. From the perspective of a particular job or service, certain weaknesses can be acceptable while some other are a strict no. You should be absolutely clear that you should never utter the latter.
Here you should not say any weakness that even remotely projects you as a person who doesn't believe in the basic tenets of our constitution, our legal system, the basic ethos of our nation etc. So you should not say something like "I feel difficult in working in a diverse environment", "I cannot work in a different linguistic region", "I am home sick person" etc.
Answer 3: Dear friends the thing which can surely and most severely backfire on a candidate is an attempt to fool the Board. This is what is being attempted in this reply. Don't try to give such type of weaknesses where you are trying to project that your weakness is that you are much better than the rest around you; and that since you are the best you are a misfit with them. The Board members are experienced people. They have seen a lot of world and have definitely heard a lot like that in their long career. So don't try to fool them. It can immediately end your journey.
So friends now let us see that what should be the approach to answer a question like this. First of all, do mention only the "acceptable weakness" as has been discussed above and simultaneously try conveying to the Board the steps you are taking to overcome this weakness .But this "steps" part should be very crisp. It should not be seen as an effort of covering up your mistake. Let's take the help of few examples to understand this approach.
Example 1: "Sir my spoken English is not up to the standard. At times I can't fully convey my idea. To improve this, I daily watch the primetime discussions on the news channels."
Example 2: "Sir, my physical fitness is not upto the mark. I am working on it. t devote one hour in the morning and 45 minutes in the evening for my physical fitness."
CHOOSING BETWEEN FAMILY AND WORK
Many times the Board wants to check that how you deal with an ethical or moral dilemma and put you in certain hypothetical situations where you have to choose between two almost equally important things. Aspirant Officers generally find difficult to handle such situations. Let's try preparing for such situations with the help of a hypothetical situation.
A Board member asks you “suppose you are the DM of your district and some big natural calamity has struck your district. Your presence is required not only in your capacity as the DM but also because of your past experience and professional competence in handling such situations. But simultaneously you get a call from the home that one of your family members is critically ill and has been hospitalized . As such you are required at home. Now what will you do in such a situation?”
This is indeed a very perplexing situation. Let us first go through the various possible replies that can be given by the candidate.
Answer 1: Sir, as I am the District Magistrate of my district and my district requires me at this moment I will stay at my station. My friends and relatives can take care of my family member.
Answer 2: Sir, I will instruct my subordinates how to carry out the relief work and after that I will leave for my home because my family is in a crisis and needs me.
Answer 3: Sir, I will remain at my district and I will send somebody from here to take care of my family member.
Now let us analyze these replies. In Answer 1, no doubt the candidate has successfully send a signal to the Board that he is a professional and puts his service and his professional responsibility at a very higher level but simultaneously he is sending a signal that he is abdicating his other responsibility, that is, his responsibility towards the family. So, here at best the candidate can be considered to be a 50 percent responsible person.
But there is another aspect to this answer. That is, you should answer only if you actually feel so. I’m stressing this is because of the reason that generally this is not the actual case but generally this is the answer that is being given to the board to impress upon them that for you the professional ethics and line of duty is the foremost important thing. If you don’t actually feel it, the board will look through your plan of manipulating them and then it can backfire on you.
In Answer 2 also, based upon the same reasoning as above, you would be claimed at best as a 50 percent responsible officer; as here you are fulfilling your responsibility towards your family but abdicating your responsibility towards your duty. Though this seems to be a more honest reply as generally this a actually what is going on in the mind of a person but I would still rate it as an inferior reply to the Answer 1 because of the reason that your mandate in the Personality Test is to project yourself as a fit person for the civil service but by giving such a reply you are doing exactly the opposite.
Answer 3 is the worst of all the three replies because it has the negatives of both the above mentioned replies but hardly any positive. What is the logic of sending one of your subordinates to your home? After all you must be having some friends and family members over there to look after them. If they cannot substitute you then how can your subordinate?
So in the light of the above discussion now let's try to explore what could be a possible good answer in this situation. I think a possible reply can be “Sir, I will weigh both the scenarios. By weighing the scenarios I mean I will try to find out the degree of my substitution at both the places. Where it will be higher I will be on the other side. By the degree of substitution I mean the extent to which I can be substituted by someone else while not hampering the outcome much.
Now if my understanding of the disaster situation is that I can successfully explain to my colleagues and subordinates what they should do and then they can substitute me reasonably well and simultaneously I cannot be substituted at my home in the sense that they need some blood or some kind of an organ transfer wherein only I am an option, I would go to home.
There can be another scenario where I feel that my presence at the home is required only to the extent of psychological support. Otherwise I have no other concrete role there, that is, the degree of substitution is very high, I will stay at my station and wilt carry out my professional responsibility.”
This seems to be a very apt reply. Firstly, you have conveyed to the Board that you are an objective person who has the ability of deciding the things on merit. Secondly, you have conveyed that you don't enter into a situation with some preconceived notions. Thirdly, you have exemplified your clarity of thought by your concept of 'degree of substitution". Fourthly, you have impressed upon the Board that you can remain calm and composed and can think rationally in very taxing situations as well.
PROFESSIONALS ENTERING THE SERVICE
The debate regarding whether the professionals like engineers, doctors, lawyers, MBA graduates etc. should enter the civil services or not is quite an old debate but, in my opinion, to a great extent it is now settled debate.
So friends first and foremost imbibe one thing into your mind permanently that neither it is legally nor conceptually nor ethically wrong for o professional to join the civil services.
It is not legally wrong because there is no law that prohibits the same.
It is not conceptually wrong because this permission has been given by the government itself and a lot of brain and thought must have gone into this decision. So we should not and cannot challenge this collective wisdom.
It is not ethically wrong because firstly, everyone has the full freedom to decide which service he or she should join; even if it means leaving n number of previous jobs. Secondly, the service that you are leaving was joined by you on the basis of your own merit. It was not some sort of favor that was done to you. So you have left only what was yours, so no ethical dilemma should be there.
So far I have just removed the negative misconceptions regarding the professionals joining the civil services. Now let us consider the positive aspects of the professionals joining the service.
First and foremost, we must understand that today we are living in the world which is technologically driven and in a milieu that is full of technicalities and complexities. Hence the nature of governance has also transformed into a much more technological, technical and complex dimensions. Hence you, with your professional knowledge, would always be an asset to this technical governance system rather than being a liability.
Let me elucidate this point with my own example. I am basically an Electronics and Communication Engineer, today serving in the Police Services. By the conservative and conventional logic, all the engineering related knowledge that I learnt has been wasted by me and has gone into a drain. But let's check whether this old logic is right or wrong. Friends, we all know that increasingly the nature of crime is becoming technical. There are cyber crimes, financial crimes, other crimes in which high dose of technology is involved. All these crimes cannot be investigated by the knowledge of the law only. In fact it requires the police officer to have at least the basic amount of technical knowledge related to that crime. So friends, here a person having professional background is definitely an asset to the department.
POLITICALQUESTIONS
The entire scheme of the civil service examination in general, and the Personality Test 1n particular, is politically neutral and wants the candidates to remain so. Yet, there can be situations in the Personality Test wherein you are asked highly politically loaded questions like "Which political party do you support?" or "In your opinion which is the best political party in India?” or "In your opinion which is the most corrupt political party in India?” etc. I feel it is quite natural for the Aspirant Officers to find themselves in a catch-22 position here.
Let's try to understand the approach to be followed in such a scenario with the example of the question "Which political party do you support?" Let us first see some of the possible answers for this question:
Answer 1: Sir, I am an apolitical person. As such I don't support any political party.
Aner2: Sir, though no political party is perfect still support xyz political party because I think it is the best of the lot and least corrupt.
Now let's analyse these answers. Answer 1 is seriously flawed. A civil servant should definitely be a politically neutral person but ideally he should not_ be apolitical. The former means that you are politically aware have views about various political parties and political issues but t se views are strictly in your personal capacity, in your capacity as the citizen f this nation. Those views should never come in the way of your pofess1oal duty..Yu should be neutral and unbiased to any political d1spensat1on that is in the office or in the opposition.
Now when you say "I am apolitical, the Board can perceive it in two ways. First, they can at once reject you in their minds because how can a Person who doesn't have the understanding of the political issues, work m the ol1ttcar milieu. Second, the Board can form an impression that you are trying to be smart with them and are trying to conceal yourself. Such a thing would surely backfire.
Hence Answer1 is rejected.
Answer 2, though might be closer to the truth is very risky. Firstly, being a civil servant you should make it a habit that you should never make public your political thinking as it can unnecessarily bring tensions for you.
Secondly, It would be very difficult for anyone to convincingly explain that why he/she supports a particular political party because all of them have major problems with them. How will you defend those aspects? Thirdly, there can be a good chance the chairperson or some other member have a severe repulsion from the political party that you have mentioned. That will start an altogether new set of problems.
Hence Answer 2 is also rejected.
Now that we have the idea about what not so say let's understand what should we say and how to deal with such situations.
A pragmatic approach: You can convey to the Board that there is no political party which you can support in to because you have difference of opinion with all of them on one issue or the other. If you like the policy of one political party on FOi issue, you are not much convinced with their foreign policy and so on. Hence you support many political parties on the merits of the stand they have taken viz a viz a particular issue. Similarly, you don't support the same number of parties on their stand in certain other issues.
Such a reply has many inherent advantages. Firstly, like a good civil servant you didn't make public your political taste. Secondly, your reply has convinced the Board that you are not an apolitical person. Rather, you are a politically informed person which every educated and enlightened citizen should be. Thirdly, you have conveyed to the Board that inspire of being politically aware, you are politically neutral as you support the stand of the parties on the issues and not the political parties per se. Fourth, the Board could get the signal that you are an objective and prejudice free person as you have the ability of treating the case on its merits and not on some emotional or personal biases.
CRITICISM OF THE UPSC
Often the candidates find themselves in a very uncomfortable situation when they are asked to critically analyze or to criticize the functioning or any other aspect of the UPSC. It's quite understandable that if I'm asked to criticize you when you are judging me for a job and that too in front of you and at your place, nothing can be more challenging and difficult than such a scenario.
Even the Board knows this and that is why they are asking you such a question. Let's first understand the reason behind such a question being asked. Do you really think that the Board is interested in your opinion as to the functioning of the UPSC? My dear friends for the critical analysis of the UPSC there are various high level bodies and committees under the supervision of the eminent personalities. So definitely they are not looking for your opinions regarding the UPSC.
The actual reason for such a question is that the Board wants to see that how you handle such a tricky and uncomfortable situation. So the first thing to be kept in mind while answering any such question is that you cannot afford to be over critical of the UPSC. Your mandate is not that. Simultaneously, you cannot take a position wherein you are suggesting that everything with the UPSC is fine, it's a perfect organization. Remember friends , nobody and no organization on this planet can be perfect. So can't be the UPSC. If you take such kind of a stand that will send the wrong signal to the Board that you. are a sycophant. Don't do that.
So while bringing out anything negative regarding the UPSC; be very specific, nuanced, polite, objective and unbiased. Most importantly for every weakness or shortcoming that you are suggesting you should have solution along with the proper implementation plan.
Let's go through some questions and possible answers regarding this intricate topic.
Q: What are the drawbacks and shortcomings in the recently made modifications in the civil services examination pattern by the UPSC?
A: Sir I feel that on the whole these changes are in the right direction and in sync with the requirements and demands of the contemporary times but I feel certain modifications can be made. For example, I think the weight age of the Personality Test in the overall scheme should have been increased because very often we see that we are getting very talented people into the bureaucracy but they have a wrong value system. The value system can be primarily judged during the Personality Test. Hence its weight age should have been increased.
Few things to be understood in this answer:
Firstly, we limited our criticism only to one weakness .There can be many others but unless and until asked for the more you should restrict yourself to only one. Secondly, we started on a positive note, commending the overall scheme of change. This sends a signal to the Board that though we are criticizing that does not mean we are criticizing the whole issue. We can appreciate the good that is associated with that issue. Thirdly, we have given strong and convincing reasons for our stand.
CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES
Many times the Aspirant Officers are asked questions related to the criticism of the government and its policies. Often candidates feel difficulty in handling such questions. Let's discuss the approach to be followed.
Don't be overly critical of the government, its efforts and its policies and programmers. You should always try to be positive regarding the approach of the government. That does not mean that you should not criticize the government and its policies or that you can't point out the flaws. The only thing to be kept in mind is that the criticism should be positive in nature and should be accompanied with a set of solutions. You should not give impression to the Board that you are just one of those who can always see and find a problem in virtually everything. It's very easy to do that. You should always try to project an impression that you are a person who is always a part of the solution not the part of the problem. Unless and until you don't have a pragmatic and a practical solution to a problem, you should refrain from criticizing the same.
22.9 CRITICISM OF JUDICIARY
You should be very cautious and guarded while commenting or criticizing the judiciary. The same approach that we discussed in the topic criticism of Government policies" should be followed here as well.
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