Whenever we see an Armed Forces officer, his/her first impression is distinct in terms of his/her personality traits including self-confidence, leadership qualities, communication skills, courage, stamina, initiative and so on. The tagline in Armed Forces advertisement asks young talent in India whether they had those unique Officer Like Qualities (OLQs) to be the part of Indian Armed Forces. This article highlights these OLQs required to tap the career opportunities in Armed Forces.

‘ Mansa, Karmana, Vacha ’ – The Armed Forces career gives an individual the opportunity to display leadership skills and bestows one with a tremendous amount of responsibility at a very young age. The authority and responsibility, as well as the career profile associated with an Armed Forces officer, expects the aspirant to have certain OLQs focussing on physical toughness, mental robustness, leadership skills and decisiveness. The various tests conducted to assess the personality of an aspirant for Armed Forces officer career focus on three- pronged approach – Mansa (Mind), Vacha (Communication skill) & Karmana (Body language)- translating into candidates’ thoughts, speech and actions.
These three aspects of personality are assessed independently by Psychologist, Interviewing Officer and Group testing Officer respectively. The summation of these three approaches in conference stage of examination gives the comprehensive inputs to the selection panel identifying a potential and a trainable Armed Forces leader. The OLQs can be classified into four zones- personality traits related to mind; traits related to heart; leadership skills and dynamic qualities in candidate. The OLQs related to mind are- Effective Intelligence, Reasoning Ability, Organizing Ability and Power of Expression. The OLQs related to heart are Social Adaptability, Cooperation and Sense of Responsibility. Five OLQs associated with leadership skills include Initiative, Self-Confidence, Speed of Decision, Ability to influence a group and Liveliness. Lastly, three OLQs associated with dynamic personality of an individual consists of Determination, Courage and Stamina.

Conduct of SSB – The OLQs of the aspirants for Armed Forces career is assessed by an expert panel of interviewers consisting of the psychologist, Interviewing officers and Group Testing Officers (GTO). The overall assessment of the candidate by Service Selection Board (SSB) panel is conducted over a period of five days through a battery of tests. Various psychological tests conducted during SSB assessment requires prompt, decisive answers by the candidates which reflect the true picture of their personality. These psychological tests include TAT (Thematic Apperception Test), WAT (Word Association Test), SRT (Situation Reaction Test), SDT (Self Description Test) and PP&DT (Picture Perception and Description Test). The candidates are taken through a series of situations projected as words, pictures and narrated situations in these psychological tests.
The reaction timings are stringent to bring in natural and subconscious behavioural pattern of the candidates. Just with the observation of a picture for 30 seconds, a candidate is expected to narrate the story which is helpful to assess the mindset and positive attitude of the candidate by SSB panel. SRT consists of examples of day to day life situations and their responses in terms of how they feel, think and act in such situations. In SDT, each candidate is given 15 minutes and is asked to write five separate paragraphs on the opinion of his parents or guardian, friends, teachers or superiors, self opinion and qualities the candidate would like to develop/ inculcate in himself.
Based on the imagination and positive framework of mind, the candidate is expected to write and then narrate a story based on the hazy and unclear picture shown to him on the screen. In addition to psychological tests, there are total nine tests which are conducted by GTO to assess the physical toughness, mental robustness, leadership qualities and team spirit of a candidate. It is worth noting that out of more than 15 tests conducted during SSB procedure, atleast on six occasions the communication skill of the candidate and his convincing ability is being assessed. Group Discussion skills during PP&DT test, two Group Discussion exercises during GTO tasks and extempore lecturette on given topic, needs effective communication skill and ability to adapt to the given situation.

It is often said that ‘Armed Forces is not just a career but a way of life!’ It is absolutely correct as Armed Forces career not only offers good salary, name, respect but the opportunity to serve the nation and a disciplined, systematic and a professional approach towards life. SSB assessment tests and its preparation provides us with an opportunity to carve one’s personality through systematically sharpening one’s leadership abilities, communication skills and developing a professional and positive approach towards the given task.

(The author of this article ,Lt Col (Dr) Satish Dhage, is an ex Army officer and has been qualified for IPS (Indian Police Services) through IPS LCE 2012. Presently, he is Director, MGM Institute of Competitive Exams Aurangabad. For any queries or feedback, he can be contacted on email id : drsatishdhage@gmail.com)