UPSC CSE 2020 Topper Interview, Work on personality development skills from day one – Vaibhav AIR 25

Interviewer – How did your journey of the UPSC start

Vaibhav – When I was in college, I thought of joining IFS, before preparing for UPSC I was working as a software engineer in Banglore. I started preparing for UPSC in 2018 this was my second attempt.

Interviewer – What Motivated you for this Journey

Vaibhav – I wanted to choose a profession in which my area of ​​interest is more, so my hobby turned into my profession. Instead of making an artificial career, I wanted to do something in which I am naturally interested. I wanted to do something from the beginning where I can represent India. That’s why I chose IFS

Interviewer – Aspirants should give exam soon after college or first should do a job like you did what do you think

Vaibhav – I once wanted to see how work is done in the corporate sector. But I was inclined towards IFS, so I joined it. There was no one to guide me so it took me time to decide but if you have the guidance then you can probably enter the services sooner. This is a very subjective decision

Interviewer – What are the critical points from the first attempt to the second attempt

Vaibhav – Maybe it is understanding of the exam when I gave the first attempt I didn’t have that much clarity on what is the UPSC demanding from me and how do I represent myself. Once I saw the whole process, I understood what they are expecting. So this time my focus was on making myself such a person, the kind of civil servant they want to see in me.

Interviewer – Can you explain in detail what you have understood in this process so that aspirants can learn from your experience?

Vaibhav – This examination is a kind of personality test that what kind of person they want to see you. They want to hire intelligent Indian youth who think about the country, those who understand the problems of the country and have a desire to solve them in a constructive way. For that you should be a person who talks about facts, you should have empathy and objectivity. So put all these traits in yourself, put them in your personality and they should reflect in your answer too.

Interviewer – After the first attempt, what did you change in your strategy from prelims to interview

Vaibhav – The strategy for prelims was the same as last time also I cleared prelims, There is only one way that everyone does, do intelligent guessing, read basic books, there are some facts that you must remember, you will have to make a method to solve 100 questions in 2 hours. I had created a new good method for mains which was in cycles in the first cycle I made notes and created a basic block for myself and gave test in second cycle i worked on my presentation and articulation in the third cycle I learned the current affairs, value-added material, committees reports and then gave the test. This is how in cycles I prepared myself for the main exam.

 Interviewer – Understanding the demand of questions in the exam, how to represent your answer in the exam

Vaibhav – We have so much material that sometimes we start repeating the language of notes instead of writing our own answers so. To avoid this, I use to first understand the crux of the question, then I used to read the question again to understand its structure and then the points started coming automatically and I used to try to write different points from the notes.