Civil Services Interview (also called ‘IAS Interview’ or ‘Civil Services Personality’) is the final assessment of prospective officers. The interview is for a maximum of 300 marks, so it has about 13% weightage (300 out of 2300) Out of about 2,00,000 candidates that have started the long and arduous journey, about 2500 winners (typically, 2.5 times the total number of vacancies) will be called for the interview to fill about 1200 posts. So, people who are invited for the interview are almost there at the threshold of a bright civil services career and all it needed is one last show of strength.

Just like for CSAT and Mains, Interview too needs focused preparation. Interview questions broadly fall into eight categories:

1) Questions about your place of birth/hometown, your home state and your current place

2) Questions about your hobbies

3) Questions about your school/college/University

4) Questions about your subjects/specialization at school/college/university

5) Questions about your optional subjects

6) Questions about your current/past jobs (if you have worked or working currently)

7) Questions current events of national and international importance.

8) Surprise questions or stress questions

Every year, UPSC constitutes many interview boards for the Civil Services Interview. Typically, each board consists of six eminent persons with varied specializations and expertise. UPSC member of the board will officiate as the chairman. The interview board will assess the candidate’s appearance, manners, poise, alertness, emotional balance, rational and unbiased judgment, decision making ability under stress, depth of knowledge, communication skills, analytical skills, leadership skills and integrity. Each interview will generally last about 30 - 50 minutes. Each board is adept at making each candidate comfortable by starting the interview with pleasantries and ice-breaker questions. So the friendly interview boards make sure that the time flies in the interview room and most candidates admit that the interview was pleasant and not at all intimidating. Candidates are allowed to choose their preferred language for the interview from the list given by UPSC and it need not be the same medium that the candidate chose for the Mains.

The world of knowledge is infinite and many people compare a human’s acquired knowledge to that of a spoonful from the ocean of knowledge. Learned persons have a bigger spoon, that’s all. So, it is expected that a candidate cannot answer all the questions. Nobody ever scored more than 250 marks out of the possible 300 marks. All India topper of the year 2009 scored 225. Any score above 200 is very impressive.

Preparation:

Preparation should start soon after the Mains, without waiting for the result of the Mains.

Each candidate is advised to keep the photocopy of the application form he/she has filled for the Mains as to prepare for any question about the data that was on the form.

Prepare for questions on your home town, home state, your present and past jobs and your hobbies.

Brush up your optional subjects for any question.

For current events of national and international significance, read good news papers and magazines everyday (see book list for recommendations on newspapers and magazines)

Participate in as many mock interviews as possible with a good institute or with your study group.