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Job aspirants, especially those who want to land in management posts, will have to undergo a personality test as the Andhra Pradesh government has revoked its earlier order to do away with personal interviews.
In June 2021, the state government issued an order to abolish personal interviews for recruitment, calling it a “historic decision” aimed at maintaining “maximum transparency” and ensuring “full confidence” in the recruitment process for government positions. Appointment to all categories of government posts was to be made on the basis of written examination only.
But it has now reversed its policy to scrap the transparent process and bring back the old system, albeit with a new nomenclature called a “personality test”. “Government, after careful consideration of the matter, hereby reinstates the personality test for higher level posts in Group-1 services for recruiting suitable and deserving candidates for effective and efficient delivery of public services,” said the state’s Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma in an order (on September 30), which, however, was not made public.
After a gap of more than four years, APPSC issued a notification on September 30 to fill 92 Group 1 posts in the state government and simply mentioned the latest personality test order.
On an average, about 60,000 candidates appear for the first group preliminary exam and about 10,000 for the mains. For group 2 and others, the number will be above two lakh.
Group 1 posts include Deputy Collector, Deputy Superintendent of Police, District Registrars, Auditors and the like.
When asked about the rationale behind the government’s policy reversal, a senior AP Public Service Commission (APPSC) official only remarked that “wiser sense prevailed”. “The decision to forgo personal interviews is clearly based on some flawed assumption. We have consulted the Union Public Service Commission and also constituted a committee of experts and recommended conducting a personality test at least for Group 1 posts,” the official told PTI.
Accordingly, the government came out with a new order to restore the personality test.
This will be a “structured personality test” where the character (mental and emotional) of the candidates will be analyzed.
“We cannot simply recruit candidates without assessing their qualities and attributes, which is only possible through a personal interface. The personality test will help us determine how suitable the candidate is for government service,” the official said.
The APPSC constitutes three separate boards, each consisting of two IAS and IPS officers, an academician of the rank of University Vice-Chancellor, a member of the APPSC, besides the Chairman.
“We have put in place an efficient and tamper-proof system that leaves no room for manipulation,” the APPSC official said, refuting allegations that the personal interview was restored to please certain members of the Commission who were “political appointees”. APPSC secretary (in-charge) H Arun Kumar said the personal interview carries only about 10 per cent of the total marks.
“There will be a 360-degree review of the overall personality of each candidate,” he said.
On 17 October 2019, the CMO announced, “Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has taken a historic decision to abolish personal interviews in recruitment.” On 26 June 2021, the historic decision of the Chief Minister was finally translated into an official government order, which said that only written examinations will be held for all categories of posts including Group-1 posts in all appointments to be notified henceforth.
Calling it a “major reform”, the government said the move to do away with the interview process was “to maintain maximum transparency and ensure full confidence of competing candidates throughout the selection process”. Back in 2011, the then united AP government headed by N Kiran Kumar Reddy abolished the interview process for all subordinate services as part of the reforms introduced in the recruitment of APPSC.
The reforms were implemented as per the recommendations made by a high-level committee headed by the then Special Chief Secretary J Satyanarayana.
However, written tests and interviews were reserved for executive posts like Deputy Collector, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Commercial Tax Officer, Regional Transport Officer and the like.
The Jagan Mohan Reddy government changed this policy last year but has now backed off
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