10 Best SSB interview tips

Young aspirants who are interested in joining Indian Armed Forces have to face questions like how to join Indian Army ? how to join Indian Air Force ? what is the written exams procedure to join Indian Armed forces ? what is SSB interview procedure and how to prepare for SSB interview?

There are lots of questions and they cannot be answered at once due to vastness of the Indian Armed Forces recruitment structure. So, we try take each and every aspects of Indian Armed Force recruitment process and provide as much as information to our readers to help them in their preparations. In this same spirit of information sharing, in this article we will discuss about 10 Best SSB interview tips. When we say ssb interview tips, we are not trying to talk about technical or precise knowledge about any particular test conducted under SSB interview (say Group discussion, PGT, HGT etc) but we here are going to discus 10 best traits that will help a candidate in improving his/her performance in more than one tests that are conducted during SSB interview.

Below given are 10 Best SSB interview tips on which an aspirant should work on to improve his performance:

1. Confidence – ssb interview tips

When you arrive on first day of SSB interview at your allotted center, you will see there are thousand or more candidates are standing in the queue and out of these only 50 and less candidates are going to clear the first day of screening test and rest will return home. This pressure of competition is enough to destroy your performance if you don’t have self-confidence no matter how well you have prepared for screening test, same can be said about other tests conducted in 5 days process whether it is psychological, command task, group task, obstacles, personal interview or conference. All these tests require different level of mind set.

Let’s say you know what to do and how to do in every test, you have pictured everything perfectly and flawlessly in your mind but you don’t have enough confidence on your preparation, you are having second thoughts about some steps, what will happen if I do this? Or what if this doesn’t work? As a result when you perform the same in reality you see nothing is going as you imagined and some other unprepared guy is doing things better than you.

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”

ssb interview tips on how to boost confidence:

• Foster a positive attitude, it will turn down your negative thoughts and give you a clear view of your own thoughts.
• Take control over emotions, waving emotions is inspired by fear, impatience, inferiority and insecurity get rid of these feelings and you will strive as a winner.
• Start with setting small goals and put your 100 percent to achieve them, it will give you a taste of winning and inspire you to do big.
• Always choose right way to do things because it’s the hard way, it will teach you about struggle and success.
• Keep challenging yourself, you yourself is your best teacher because you know your pros and cons better than anybody.

2. Communication- ssb interview tips

Smart and correct way of communication is a necessity for a candidate, there are many tests such as group discussion, personal interview, conference etc where communication skills of a candidate is tested in different ways.

Let’s take a scenario of day 1 screening test PPDT (picture presentation and discussion test), you have been given a picture on which story writing and discussion is needed to be done, Since you have practiced a lot before you have successfully made a perfect story in the brief amount of time allotted and also you have well-articulated the story in your mind and noted out the points to support your discussion but when it comes the time to perform you are seeing that no one is able to understand what you are saying, you are not getting enough attention of the listeners as you expected. This may have happen because, you are not audible enough to the listeners or you are making silly grammar mistakes or your sentence flow is wrong or you are not able to frame your sentence with the right words etc.

Poor communication skill doesn’t go un-noticed in SSB interview and it has been one of the reasons for screen out or conference out of the candidates.

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.”

ssb interview tips to improve communication skills:

• Mentor your body language, a good body language will help you attract listener’s attention and it will give you impressive expressions when stating your point.
• Use less communication fillers like – ummm, aaa, etc. be clear about your points frame your next sentence in mind when speaking the first sentence, it shows you know what you are talking about.
• Be a good listener and ask questions to the speaker, this will show you have interest in the talk and also it will improve your knowledge.
• Eye contact and body posture, always make eye contact with listeners and keep your body movements toward the listeners. It is one of the basic etiquettes of communication.
• Watch your tone, aggressive tone is not welcomed in good discussion but communication in a single tone is also boring vary the tempo of the tone depending upon the flow of communication and soothe of the listeners.

3. Time management- ssb interview tips

Time management is a criteria which is common in every tests of SSB interview, whether it is picture perception where you have to write a story within 3-4 minutes or group discussion for 10-15 minutes or written tests like OIR officer intelligence test or psychological test-WAT, TAT etc, or personal interview/conference, group task etc. Everywhere in some way time is a factor and to put it simply candidates who knows how to perform in the time allotted will succeed and the candidates who don’t know about time management will fail.

“I think time management as a label encourages people to view each 24-hour period as a slot in which they should pack as much as possible – Tim Ferriss”

Here we can say time management is nothing but executing your actions as per your planning in the given interval of time. It is like interlocking of zip and chain, here if the tooth and pit in the chain mismatches the whole process fall down.

ssb interview tips on time management:

• Make diary of events, create a time interval for set of tasks and put them in your memory block like a diary. It will help you in organizing and completing work at right time.
• Avoid delaying tasks, make it a general habit of finishing the task as it come. It will give you extra time to revise or do things in a more impressive way.
• When doing a task make note on essentials and non-essentials, if time is a factor you don’t have to do things that you don’t need to do.
• Prioritize, delegate and remove distractions from your tasks, since you can’t do everything, learn to prioritize the important and leave the rest for later. Things that can be better done by others or things that are not in your zone, consider delegating especially when team work is enrolled. A distraction is anything that doesn’t concern your task, learn to block it.
• Buffering your task, keep a buffer time to gather all the prerequisite information before executing a plan, it avoids any future error.

4. Team player- ssb interview tips

“You are a skilled soldier but not a team player either its gona cost you your life or yours partner’s.”

Team work is one of the essential traits required in military; if you want to join Indian Armed Forces then you have to adopt the properties of a team player. In SSB interview ability to be a team player of a candidate is tested under GTO tasks.

Take PGT (progressive group task) or CT (command task) under ssb GTO tasks, here your group will be provided with an obstacles and some material (example Plank, rope etc) to cross that obstacle. In these tasks performance of one guy with a team and in a team is very carefully observed; may be you are good when you work alone and you have performed well in your individual obstacles but there will be obstacles where you have to ask a team member for assist say to hold the plank or to tie the rope and in these moments improper coordination may result in elimination. Same goes for SRT (situation reaction test), here you will be provided with theoretical situation in which you have to use your brain along with given accessories to overcome the situation, and in those accessories your team members are also included, you are required to know about how to use the team member or how to follow instruction in a team so that the plan is successfully executed.

ssb interview tips to became a team-player:

• Be reliable, you have to show other people that they can depend on you. It only comes with hard work and determination on commitments.
• Be a good follower, whenever you are committing for a task no matter how small or big always try to listen and follow the instructions of the leader/instructor. It will inspire you in becoming a team player.
• Share openly, good team player share their thoughts openly among team members that’s how a team become more effective.
• Coordination and flexibility, coordinate equally among team members even though you have some personal grudge with any of team member and be flexible means adapt according to the situation around you don’t try to change the situation according to you. This will show that you can work beyond your comfort zone.
• Be supportive and respectful to other’s opinion only then they will do the same for you.

5. Know yourself & surrounding- ssb interview tips

In SSB interview during personal interview candidates are asked lot of questions based on himself and his surrounding, these questions will be based on candidate hobbies, personal interests, favorite music or movie, places he/she like, personal academic achievements, extracurricular activities, candidates family occupation, fathers profession, mothers profession, candidates village, personal culture, neighbors, candidates role in family, candidate’s dependency on family or family dependency on candidate’s etc. These questions are to assess a candidate’s psychology about himself and people around him. How well he observes things around himself.

Same happens when during SSB interview conference, questions are asked to candidate about his stay, what did he/she likes/dis-likes, any changes he suggest etc. These questions are to measure his psychology and observation skills.

ssb interview tips on PI:

• Always prepare notes on self-description and stick to it, same questions will be asked again in different ways to check if you varying from your answer.
• Create a truthful persona of yourself, stop saying silly lies where they are not needed. It will help you when facing rapid fire question during personal interview.
• Work on your analyzing capability it will help you in every psychological tests.
• Know your dress code, what you wear shows your personality to the assessor when you appear. As they first impression is last impression.
• Be audible appear like you are keen to speak and respond to the questions with a smile.

6. Gentleman personality- ssb interview tips

“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise – Ralph Waldo Emerson”

A trainee on admission to the IMA is referred to as a Gentleman Cadet. One reason for this is that the academy expects its graduates to uphold the highest moral and ethical values, same-way during SSB interview assessors are looking for candidate who has the traits of a gentleman or atleast has the potential to learn to be a gentleman. You will ask why this is so necessary. Well there are many diplomatic reasons can be found to justify it but it will be better if we present a scenario:

Say you are a fresh trainee in IMA (Indian Military Academy) came from a south Indian background, here in the academy you are going to see other fellow trainees who have come from different parts of the country and as you know our country is full of diversities – people are from different cultures or of different languages. Goal of IMA is to train the candidates in a unanimous culture but you can imagine the result when trainees of same culture/language stay together and no common ground is found where trainees of different languages want to work together. That’s why Gentleman personality is inducted in each and every trainee, under this basic etiquettes are taught to them such as – how to eat with everybody or how to dress, how to talk, how to gesture/greet, etc. Covering on these small things makes a unanimous environment in which everybody is treated equally when it comes to their personal background.

As a candidate when you are attempting your SSB interview you have to show the assessors and your team members that you have traits f gentleman, below are given are few tips on gentleman personality

ssb interview tips on gentleman personality:

• Always be friendly with fellow candidates, and try to make good communication with each and everybody group member whether you like him/her not.
• Dress accordingly for every occasion, like for GTO – white shorts and T-shirts, white shoes and socks; for personal interview – formal shirt, pant, tie and shoes.
• Wish assessors in PI, conference, GTO tasks and fellow candidates during group discussions. While enquiring with assessors remember the proper salutations.
• Keep your and your surrounding hygiene in check. It leaves a good impression.
• Avoid cheating and tricking in any task, it’s not a gentleman way.

7. Academic basic knowledge- ssb interview tips

Brush up your academic knowledge, technical question can be asked in personal interview based on whatever you have learned in your school life or college life. It is always better to have basic knowledge of your subjects.

ssb interview tips for preparing on basic academic knowledge:

• Always make short hand notes on what you study, it will come handy in future.
• In every subject there are some important basic concepts, try to find practical applications of those concepts it will help you remember them forever.
• Try to solve practice papers of your subjects, this will give an idea of all the possible questions that can be asked on from the subjects.
• Discuss your subject’s topics with friends, sharing ideas will help you in making memory blocks of the technical concepts.
• Be a good listener, read technical journals and watch interesting videos on your technical concepts. It will help you in understanding and memorizing those concepts.

8. Crash course preparation- ssb interview tips

There is some time interval between the notification of SSB dates and the day of appearing for SSB interview of a candidate. This time period is very crucial for any candidate, preparation of the candidate in this interval can make the whole difference, generally SSB interview aspirants went to seek help from coaching institutes which is a good decision, there is nothing wrong in taking help and learn about what you have to perform in real SSB interview.  But even though candidates are taking coaching or preparing well in advance they are not able to perform 100 percent in every test. SSB is a big 5 days procedure and there are so many tests conducted every day it is difficult for candidates to remember their preparation for each and every tests. Below given are few tips that can help candidates in last minute preparation of the SSB interview

ssb interview tips crash course preparation:

• Break down each and every test in sub parts, like PPDT in picture perception, story writing, storytelling, personal introduction, story discussion, and conclusion. Same goes for other tests such as SRT, GTO, PI, Conference etc.
• While preparing in advance for SSB interview, make useful short notes about each and every test and carry it to SSB center go through them before performing in your concerning test.
• Before attempting any test in SSB interview talk to the repeating candidates on how they have performed before in test, ask politely for tips.
• Learn to be spontaneous and instantaneous, there is nothing you can’t achieve when you know what to and how to do at the right time.
• Create backup plan for when attempting GTO tasks and try making scenarios or examples of tests in your free time before going for the real deal.

9. Experience guidance- ssb interview tips

Whether you are a fresher as a SSB attempter or a repeater and not been able to comprehend the reason for failure then it is necessary for you to seek experience advice. Advisor can be any body – your coaching instructors, your senior repeaters or pass out candidates, your fellow candidates. It is better to ask and improve than repeating the same mistake over and over again.

If you are having trouble finding solution to your SSB interview related issue, then you can leave a comment in the below section or mail us at [email protected]. We will try our best to help you out.

10. Planning – ssb interview tips

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail – Benjamin Franklin”

Planning is a necessary step in executing any task, during SSB interview you have to go through so many test that no matter how spontaneous and skilled you are without planning you are bound to make a mistake. Every task or test take different kind of planning say for example in  for group discussion your planning will include – how to introduce yourself, how to initiate the topic, what will be the middle of the content, what examples will I give, how to conclude the discussion. You can raise the same questions when going to attempt personal interview here your planning will focus on different thing like – dress code, salutations, expressions, body language etc.

A candidate has to plan differently for different tests. Below given are few tips that may help you in enhancing your planning skills.

ssb interview tips on how to plan:

• Anticipate possible outcomes before attempting any task.
• Predict the kind of problems that can arise before attempting a task and find solutions for them in advance.
• Analyze the number of steps to be taken in completing an activity.
• Create keywords and checkpoints in any task so that if anything goes wrong it will be help you trace back your steps instead of redo everything.