Top IAS Interview questions asked by UPSC Panel

An interview proves a milestone in your final selection, IAS prelims, and mains exam are organized to check the academic knowledge of candidates while an IAS interview is conducted to check the personality and temperament of a civil service aspirant.

The interview is the final stage of the prestigious civil service exam. Candidates are selected for different positions in civil services, some aspirants think that there is no use of UPSC interviews after the two-tier examinations system of prelims and mains. But IAS PRE and mains’ exams are conducted to check the general awareness and academic efficiency on different subjects.

While an interviewer judges the overall personality of the candidates. An interview is headed by a chairman and some eminent & expert personalities in their relative fields are also a part of the IAS interview panel.

There is no fixed format or pattern for the Civil service interview. the interviewer can ask any question from the students like academic, non-academic, technical, non-technical, and whatever they want. These questions can relate to any topic, can be intense, funny, ridiculous, and so on.

Candidates have to give their best performance, the interview is considered the most difficult stage of the civil service examination. After Clearing the prelims and mains’ exams successfully, it is not very difficult to clear an interview but you will need to prepare yourself properly.

Take IAS Mock interview, express yourself clearly, and present different traits of your personality before the interviewer, show your social etiquette and mental awareness. Give your answer with proper logic and it will impress the interviewers.

These are the common questions being asked in the eyes interview.

Brief introduction of the candidate

This is the most standard question not only for civil service interviews but for almost every interview. To answer this question, Candidates can tell about their family background, academic qualification, professional and personal information, etc.

The answers of the candidates should be clear and precise and matched to the information that you have already provided to the panel in DAF.

Why does a candidate want to become an IAS officer?

This is also a quite important question which every experience will have to face. This not only brings the candidates’ goals before the interview panel but also presents a clear picture of aspirants’ thoughts regarding the Civil Service Exam.

This is the most important question as it presents an overview to the interviewer about the interest, motivation, goals, and passion of the candidate that is driving him to join the civil services. Candidates should prepare for this question in advance. Take more UPSC Mock interview.

Strength and weakness of candidates

To clear the prelims and mains exam, mental alertness and academic knowledge are the main components. To clear an interview, integrity and honesty are also very important, the interviewer not only checks your strengths and weaknesses but also your honesty level.

The interview panel consists of experts with vast experience. So don’t try to cheat them or confuse them if you don’t know the answer to any question you can refuse politely. Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses before the actual interview.

It will help you to understand your strengths and weaknesses. So that you can clearly explain your answer before the interview panel with suitable examples and logic. These are the standard questions, apart from this, interviewers also can ask some random questions or general questions but candidates cannot prepare them in advance.

For example:

Interview panel- Fill a glass with the water

Aspirant- Aspirants pour the water into the glass and suddenly it overflows a bit.

Interview panel- are you nervous?

Aspirant- No sir, I always give my 100% to everything.

If you have a raw egg and you are told to throw it on a concrete floor. How can you do it without cracking?

Candidates answer: It is very hard to crack the concrete floors.

The interviewer ordered a cup of coffee for the Aspirant. The coffee arrives and The interviewer asks what is before you?

The candidate answers: Alphabetically, T comes before U so the answer is T is before me.

Some candidates answer this question by saying that it is coffee but it is a quite common answer. Interviewers also know the answer to this they have created this scenario so that they can invoke this type of question.

The reason behind asking these questions is to search for some innovative thinking. You will have to answer this type of question with tricks and logic. Expand the horizon of your thinking level. Think about another option, so that you can impress the interview panel with your answer.