In the interview, the first big issue is confidence. Now what is "confidence"? It is a sum total of a number of things.
In the context of CSS interview, you will be more confident, if you are well-dressed, showered, shaved, perfumed, and most importantly, well prepared.

The logic is simple. If the second button on your shirt is loose and you know that it is going to fall off any minute, you will be distracted and worried and less confident. If you have taken the risk of not wearing a tie, then you might be worried about them "questioning" this very objectionable move, and u will be that bit less confident. Similarly, if you are not top of your IR and Current Affairs and other subjects with data, logic, and historical evidence, you will not be confident. If you are well-versed in these areas, you will be that much more confident.

Obviously, your verbal skills are important. But an Oxbridge accent will not help if you do not have the evidence to back your arguments.

In short, "confidence" is your ability to deal with a certain situation. You may be confident on a Cricket pitch but not in a quiz show.
As referred to earlier, the other important issue is the quality of your reasoning. You must back your thesis up, which can be anything, with logic, data, and history. You must not be emotional.

I will give you an example. If you are asked to comment on the Delhi's reaction to Gujrat riots, and u answer: "baniya Hindu is always after the Muslims and that they are hell bent on destroying the Muslim race".

Now this is a bad answer because it is emotional, it uses bad language, and it does not offer any evidence. It only offers prejudice. That may work in your local barber shop gup shup but not in the interview where you are supposed to be rational intelligent thinker.

In your answer, you may or may defend New Delhi's response, that is not important. But what is important that you come across as a reasoning man.

It is also important that you come straight to the point and don’t waste time in building a preamble. This preamble only serves to betray the fact that you are not prepared and that you had to search your brain for some 30 seconds or more to look for some semblance of an answer to a question. This is a classic problem with candidates. They are irrelevant and don’t know that and think that somehow their oratory has impressed the hell out of the panel. The fact of the matter is that the panel thinks that this man doesn’t know about issue and is wasteful.

Besides, confidence and logical arguments, the third important thing is character. Just don’t lie and don’t hide. If you womanize or drink or whatever, be open about your flaws. You don’t have to flaunt these issues, but if asked, you don’t lie. Even saying in an interview that there is an answer that u don’t know about right away is a sign of character.

About books, there are none. These Dogar Sons books full of useless trivia are completely futile. Stay away from them. Time and Economist are good magazines to read. Get many back issues and read them cover-to-cover. Dawn editorial and business page is also a must. I used a book on Cultural Literacy. That was very good and had lots of not so trivial general knowledge. I have lost the book now.

You also ask a most amusing question that why was I second and not first. I detect a little cheekiness here but I would ignore it. To tell u the truth, I have never thought about it. There are a number of reasons for it. One, I was more than glad that I had got that good a score (247/300) and therefore did not worry about missing out there. Two, my written score was quite bad and interview got me from nowhere into DMG and therefore my score was rather remarkable. Thus I did not really question my "lesser" position. Three, my friend who stood first, Raza Ahmad, is an exceptionally bright officer. I was glad to be in his bracket.

Though now that u bring it up, I will revisit these arguments.

If you notice, I have used three clear reasons to answer your question. This is an illustration for your interview answers. All questions should be clearly and logically reasoned out.

Why did I score well? Did I know all these things at that time. No, I did not. It was only in the Academy that I studied the arguments of fellow officers who did not do well in the interview. I saw that they just did not use evidence properly to back their loud assertions. And I saw that I had a habit of quoting statistics and data and also logic.

My general knowledge was quite good and my verbal skills were rather good too. This was the package and it worked.

I hope that this answer helps.

Zubair(Thanx Zubair bahi)

AOA
thanx for such a helpful guidence bt i hav a prob my current affair n geral knwlege iz nt dat gud kindly guide me hw can i improve it till my interview i have passed the exam recently n nw want to gt thru the interview succesfully
thanx
ALLAH HAFIZ

Hi...hope you are doing fine.

well if you read carefully the post above you have your answer. There are no short cuts to improve one's knowledge of current affairs and pakistan affairs. I can suggest a few things.

Current affairs

kindly make a list of important events in the past year and whats happening around now a days. Then start collecting material on them. For that you can refer to newspapers like "Dawn" " Dailytimes" "News". Go through the editorials and try to find relavant data. Make a register of the information you extract from there. Subscribe to magazines like "TIMES" "NEWSWEEK" and "ECONOMIST". you will get alot of arguments and information of our local and international affairs. Develop your views and arguments.

Pakistan Affairs

Get yourself some good books on Pakistan Affairs. The ones recommended by FPSC are " The struggle for independence of Pakistan" by I.H.Qureshi and The British Raj In India" by S.M.Burke. get yourself with the milestones of Pakistan Movement. This will help you alot in increasing your knowledge in Pakistan Affairs.

Rest is upto god's grace.

Best regards

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M-M-M

Well sir i totally agree with you on how to prepare current affairs
But sir if a candidate didn’t read the aforementioned books how can you hope that he can cram them in few days (BY the way i read i h qureshi in my exams)
I think the forum posts on pakistan affairs is a good edition in preparation but there is another thing of foremost importance
I mentioned this interview in one of my post. Here again the stress is upon character
WE dont need to exhume solely our educational brilliance The panel would be looking for honest, devoted , patriotic and sincere pakistanis
I think we have to present them as just what we are . Young, committed and service oriented individuals eager to have the opportunity to do some service to the nation with out the greed of reward and fame

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Thanks to Allah almighty who Mould me Human

In my opinion what matters is the way you depict yourself , you should be formal ,be yourself and with a positive attitude.You should ask yourself before going to the interview room that you have cleared the biggest milestone that is written portion out of 6-7k candidates,this will boost your morale and confidence.We pakistanis have a problem of exaggerating things up , do not do this , answer to the point , reply with a positive attitude and present the verbal material which is being asked.Focus on the question and give a simple answer which does not lead to misunderstanding and exaggeration of conversation.Do not try to make a fake accent , the interviewers are smart , they will catch you.Dont try to be a wana be, your tone should be clear.Thats it for now ,i`ll update this with more info because i am going to bed now.

P.s My brother is a CSP ,this is what he told me like 2-3 months back.


Regards
whj

being carried successfully through the written part, i am now hereby worried for my interview given so many have passed.for that reason your good self is requested to please help me in my interview and if possible may send me your cell number.since your interview marks had been exceedingly high, your knowledge of interview would be certainly precious.please sir help him .

sorry i didn,t mention the name to whom my scrap is directed.any way its particularly for mr zubair, however any one who secured high marks are requested.thanks

I just read that detailed discussion on interviews. Seemed quite foreign to me. I plan to appear next year for the interview. I am on tenterhooks

Oh and BTW i have saved all the tips and tricks will surely start working on them! Thanks ALOT!!

Tayyaba!

Please share your findings here so that other members can also get benefit of your research.

Regards,

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Passion is the driving force behind every success!

OMG.................such a bigg score mashaALLAH...

Hey BROTHERS CAN ANYONE TELL ME...that CAN WE APPLY ON BONAFIDE for POST OF ASSISTANT SUPERITENDENT JAIL (PPSC)... I have provisional certificate of my BBA but transcript will be available in 2 months...Can I???