Gone are the days when just passing a graduation degree from any particular stream would offer you a guaranteed and a secured job! The results of tenth standard and especially 10+2 level examinations had a decisive impact on the future career of the candidates in the past years. Nowadays the scenario has changed and instead of tenth standard and 10+2 level examination results, the results of various competitive examinations either after 10+2 level or after completion of graduation examinations, are deciding the direction of career path of the students. Recently the results of tenth standard, 10+2 level board examinations as well as equivalent examinations were declared. Those students who have got the success in these examinations are on cloud nine where as others who could not score the marks as per their expectations are feeling depressed. The success or failure at this stage is just a temporary phase and the real decisive competition would be faced by them in the upcoming years of their professional life. It is the crucial stage of their life and they ought to foresee and plan their career based on their SWOT (Strengths-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats) analysis. The road to a successful professional career of all these candidates traverses through the path of competitive examinations. This article tries to focus on priming the students about various career opportunities through competitive examinations, which can be thoroughly prepared during their graduation years in a systematic manner.

The aptitude of every candidate differs and so their career choices. Every intelligent and aspiring candidate expects money, name, fame, authority and the opportunity to serve the society through the way of his career. Some of the prestigious and officer level career options available after completion of graduation through various competitive examinations include- Civil Services Examination through UPSC or MPSC; Combined Defence Services (CDS) or Service Selection Board (SSB) examination to get commissioned as an Armed Forces officer; Banking Probationary Officer through Banking examinations like RBI Grade ‘B’ or IBPS banking exams; various Group ‘B’ level posts through SSC examination; career as a MBA graduate through various MBA entrance exams including CAT,XAT,SNAP, etc or the corporate executive career through various types of Campus Recruitment Tests. All such type of competitive examinations consist of grossly the similar kind of syllabus, in terms of preparation of basic aptitude including quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, English and the most important one being the General Studies and Current Affairs preparation. The systematic preparation of these competitive examinations require developing certain basic traits and good habits in your personality, right from your school level or college days. These include developing the habit of reading a good newspaper regularly, developing the communication skills and working specifically on developing the effective body language, focusing on conceptual clarity of various General Studies related topics and habit of effective Group Discussion. To be winner in the race of competitive examination requires a dedicated, disciplined and directed method of preparation of these exams over a period of minimum one to two years in a consistent manner.

Getting success in competitive exams is not an impossible task and it requires a specific methodology of preparation, a trick to crack the examination! There is a difference between a methodology adopted for scoring good marks at graduation examination and that for competitive examination. Competitive examination expects a candidate to be aware about the happenings at national and international level related to a variety of socioeconomic and political or ecological issues. A curious mind, an analytical approach and a skill to express these things systematically, through your writings is the trick for cracking the competitive examination. In order to achieve this, a competitive examination aspirant must have the curiosity to follow the current events, occurring in and around us at the level of state, national and international level. He should always try to find out the answers of questions ‘why, what, where, when and how?’ of various issues happening in and around him. In order to prepare systematically for competitive examination, the first requirement is a thorough analysis of the syllabus as well as understanding the pattern of questions asked in last few years of these competitive exams. The content of the syllabus gives you an idea about the areas to be focussed on. It requires the conceptual and analytical understanding of the issue, through various relevant sources, extending from reference books to current affairs material to knowledge resource available from web- based content. The emphasis should be on conceptual clarity and its current affairs relevance, rather than entangling oneself into too many technicalities. The questions asked in the competitive exams are based on the conceptual clarity, their applied aspects and the most importantly their relevance to the current affairs. A candidate who acquires the mastery over basic knowledge of the subject along with its application and the relevance in current scenario gets an advantage in the competitive examination race.

Secondly, the aspirant must keep in mind that when they are preparing for competitive examinations, they have to develop the quality of being ‘jack of all trades and master of atleast one.’ That means a competitive examination aspirant should have the basic knowledge of all subjects like -History, Geography, Economics, Polity, Environment, Basic Science and Aptitude test and command over atleast one of these subjects which can be taken as an optional subject in civil services examination. Thirdly, it is a myth amongst the students that competitive examination preparation means only reading or studying some notes or books in an examination mode of preparation. On the contrary, the aspirant should always try to capitalise over the opportunities coming across them in their day to day life to develop their personality as well as communication skills. The overall impact of such kind of preparation could be seen in the Interview test of these candidates in future. Apart from knowing the factual aspects of an issue, competitive examination expects a candidate to be in command over precise expression and writing skills. During your graduation days, you must take the opportunity to speak or express yourself in order to gain the confidence, which will certainly help you in scoring good marks in your Interview test or Group Discussion phase. The candidates with versatile personality hold an additional advantage for cracking the competitive exams as these personality traits help them in crossing the different stages of the examination with an additional advantage.

Achievement of a dream career through cracking competitive examination is a skill and that skill has to be nurtured right from your school or college days. A systematic, disciplined and a stepwise preparation under right guidance is the ultimate key of success. As an Olympian is not created in a day, it requires a persistent preparation of years together. Similarly, the topmost career as an IAS, IPS, IFS, Armed Forces officer can be achieved only by developing your personality right from your school or college days and hence it is mandatory for an aspirant to start competitive exams preparation at the earliest. There is no need of becoming too anxious at early stage of your preparation, but what requires for achieving the ultimate success is the 3-D formula i.e. a disciplined, dedicated and directed way to success.

(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)