Are you wondering about what is SSB Interview? then here you will get the answer to this question. This page will give you a complete overview about SSB Interviews which are conducted for selection of officers in Indian defence forces.
SSB full form
SSB stands for Service Selection Board. These boards are designated to conduct Interviews for shortlisting candidates who will be imparted military training and later inducted into defence forces of India. For Indian Air Force the SSB are called as AFSB which stands for Air Force Selection Board.
Today, we will discuss complete 5 days procedure at SSB. Kindly note that in some entries candidates are called one day before the start of the actual procedure and your reporting time will be around 2.30 PM. In some other entries, candidates are called in the morning. If you are called one day before then all formalities such as allotment of chest number, document verification will be done on that day and on the next day you will face the screening. We are considering that a candidate has been instructed to report at 6.00 AM and the procedure is accordingly as below.
Day 1
For example, let us say that 100 candidates are called for Interview. Your day will start with formalities such as allotting chest number, document verification and filling few forms. After that Screening test will be conducted. The Screening test consists of OIR Test and PPDT. At around 2.00 PM the result of screening will be declared and about 40 candidates will be retained for further testing, rest 60 will take their Traveling Allowance and go back to home. Those who are screened In will be allotted a new chest number after those formalities such as filing of PIQ form, allotment of rooms and instructions regarding Do and Don’t will be given. These 40 candidates will now be divided into 4 groups of 10 candidates each.
Day 2
On the second day of your SSB interview, you will face the Psychological Tests. The Psychological tests contain a battery of 4 tests namely TAT, WAT, SRT and SD. On this day your Psychology will be tested, this test will be based on certain pictures, situations and words on seeing or reading them there will be a response that will arise in your mind and you have to write that response on the sheet given to you. For example, let’s take a situation: – While going to school you saw a boy drown away in the river. Now after reading this situation just think of a response what you will do if you face this situation in real life.
Some of you might have thought that he/she will call for help. Some might say that he/she will throw a rope and take the boy out of water or other might say that he/she jumped into the river and took the boy out of the river and hospitalized him and went to school. Similarly, there could be thousands of similar response, there is no wrong or right answer it’s all about your point of view and that is what the psychologist wants to know. In these test, your response will be surely connected with the previous experiences that you had in life and you will indirectly tell many things about you to the psychologists. During these tests, no other candidate will disturb you or influence you by his performance. You will be doing this test individually on an answer booklet given to you. For complete details about each and every test go to the Psychology Section of our website.
Day 3
Hurry its outdoor time. On day 3 of SSB Interview, you will be meeting a person called GTO (Group Testing Officer) the name tells you everything, he will be judging your performance in a group. There will be about 9 tasks that will be given to you by GTO. As you see there are a total of 9 task so all of these will not be conducted on Day 3. Only 5 tasks will be conducted on day 3 and rest of the tasks will be completed on Day 4.
In the GTO series of SSB Interview, you will be facing GD, GPE, PGT, HGT, Snake Race, IO, Command Task, FGT, and Lecturette. To help you understand better let’s take GPE, in GPE you will be shown a diagram and will be told about certain problems that you need to solve. If you still remember the earlier Day i.e. Day 2 where we took the situation where the boy drowned away. Here the problem given to you will be somewhat similar to those that you already answered in the Psychological Tests and your way to solving the problem will be compared with your response in other tests.
On Day 3 itself, your Personal Interview will start. You will be informed about that in advance.
Day 4
On Day four the left out tasks of GTO series will be completed. Personal interview of candidates left after Day 3 will be conducted on Day 4. In other words, personal Interviews will be conducted on Day 3 and Day 4 and in case the strength of candidates is more than Personal Interviews might be conducted on Day 2 also.
Day 5
The only thing left now is Conference. The conference is conducted on the fifth day of the SSB Interview. You will be called in a room where all the officers who tested you for last few days will be sitting together and discussing your performance. After the conference, your result will be declared. Those who get recommended will stay back for medical examination and those who are not recommended will be sent back to home.
Those candidates who passed or in other words get recommended by the Service Selection Board will now face the medical examination that will take another 4-5 day. Please note that in some boards medical examination is not conducted immediately after completion of SSB Interview they will inform you about the date and place for medical examination.