The Personality Test is a process through which a potential candidate is evaluated by a board of members for prospective employment in the government services. A personality test implies that the board wants to test the personality of the candidate so that they can decide whether he/she is suitable for a government job or not. The qualities that are rated in this interview are, clarity of expression, grasp of narrative and argument, reasoning ability, appreciation of different points of view, awareness and concern for socio-economic problems, ranges and depth of interests and personal attributes relevant to interaction with people.
- The Interview aims at assessing the suitability of the candidate to be a competent administrator. The candidate is tested not only for his/her intelligence but also for his/her overall personality development, his/her attentiveness, balance of judgement and qualities of honesty, integrity and leadership.
- Thus, the selectors look out for these attributes in the candidate and decide whether he/she is suited for a career in civil services or not. For this, the candidate should have a positive attitude, an alert mind with quick reflexes, should be free from any sort of prejudice, should be good at making quick decisions and should have the ability to act under stress and to handle difficult situations.
Type of Questions:
- Factual questions: These questions are fact based and every such question has one correct answer to it.
- Conceptual questions: Are asked to gather information about how strong the basics of the candidate are.
- Analytical questions: Candidates are asked to analyze certain object or event occurred in the recent past.
- Behavioural questions: Candidates are asked to relate what they did in past jobs or life situations that are relevant to the particular job relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities required for success. The idea is that past behaviour is the best predictor of future performance in similar situations. By asking questions about how job applicants have handled situations in the past that are similar to those they will face on the job, board can gauge how they might perform in future situations. Examples of Behavioural questions:
- Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince an angry crowd to see things your way.
- Give an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it.
- Tell us about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone’s opinion.
- Give an example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.
- You know a lot of states provide subsidies to companies to attract invest ment; do you think it is right to do so?
- Tell me what is happening to the gap between the havesand the have-not’s of the world, and in the developing world.What or who is responsible?
- What is the relevance of the charkha, is it a tool or a symbol…what is it?
- Our present police force has been unsuccessful during some public order problems like rioting etc.
- Q. Political class has misused them. What should be done to reform this police force?
- If you are made a DC of vizag what would be your priorities?
- Q. Recently there were passenger fare hikes of railways. Is it justified?
- Q. Suppose you are collector in Maharashtra. There are incidents of attacks on north Indians. How will u handle the situation?
- Tell me which three things are important for any successful event.
- You are from IITM, there was a recent debate that girls should not come out of hostel after 11 pm and even if they come they should have an escort, do you have idea about it?
- Suppose you are a DC in rural area and there are many departments where would you like to work first. Such as civil supplies, etc
- You know ragging? Suppose you are DC then how will you check this?
- Recently there was tsunami warning in the Indian Ocean; what would have you done as DC?
- Situational interview questions ask job applicants to imagine a set of circumstances and then indicate how they would respond in that situation; hence, the questions are future oriented. One advantage of situational questions is that all interviewees respond to the same hypothetical situation rather than describe experiences unique to them from their past. Another advantage is that situational questions allow respondents who have had no direct job experience relevant to a particular question to provide a hypothetical response. Some examples of Situational questions-
- You are managing a work group and notice that one of your employees has become angry and hostile in recent weeks, to the point of disrupting the entire group. What would you do?
- You are in a meeting. Your subordinate blames you for not doing well on a task, in front of all your peers and managers from other divisions. You believe that your manager is wrong in his critique, and that he might have come to this conclusion hastily without knowing all the information. You feel you are being treated unfairly in front of your peers. You feel that your reputation may be affected by this critique. What would you do in this situation?
- If you are asked to take a stand on some real-life situation (you want to marry a girl from another community and your parents are opposed, so will you respect your parents’ opinion or will you save the honour of the girl who defied her parents to come with you?) pause for a few seconds and take a stand be firm. Board will try to shift your stand by playing sentimental cards, but stick to your stand by reasoning out. If you change stand, board will assume that your are prone to manipulation and hence a liability to the government.
- There is a sincere and erudite CEO who is very hard working but is unable to avoid the failure of the company. There is a cunning CEO who is corrupt and practical and brings success for the company and himself. The first is fired and second is rewarded -Do you agree with the management’s decision? What would you do? Choose between honest-but-doesn’t-work employee and dishonest-but-gets-the-work-done employee.
- Other possible types of questions that may be asked in an interview include:
- Background questions include a focus on work experience, education, and other qualifications. For instance, an interviewer may ask “What experience have you had with while serving in a rural hospital?”
- Work experience questions require candidates to describe or demonstrate job knowledge. These are typically highly specific questions. For example, one question may be “What steps would you take to conduct a employee training session on safety?”
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