This Interview Panel is comprised of four to five interviewers or panelists who are Retired Civil Servants, professionals, and experienced in conducting such interviews, It is just prepared like cross-questions environment and answer section between candidates and panelists as make it easy for all readers to get and feel them also into the same candidates’ situation, so I am sure this will be helpful for all competitive exams candidates who are getting into it.
Disclaimer:
This Mock interview was conducted earlier, so officials and their Posts mentioned during this question-answer session were holding their offices are might be changed or retired at the time when you are question-answer session holding any of govt offices are might be changed or retired at the time when you are reading this interview, so cross-check before appearing in any exam next future.
CSS Mock Interview by Syed Faizan Haider (ASP) Mock Interview | CSS-2020 Mock Interviews
Candidate Welcome by Panelists | CSS Q&A Session
This Interview Panel is comprised of four to five interviewers or panelists who are Retired Civil Servants, professionals, and experienced in conducting such interviews, It is just prepared like cross-questions environment and answer section between candidates and panelists as make it easy for all readers to get and feel them also into the same candidates’ situation, so I am sure this will be helpful for all competitive exams candidates who are getting into it.
Disclaimer:
This Mock interview was conducted earlier, so officials and their Posts mentioned during this question-answer session were holding their offices are might be changed or retired at the time when you are question-answer session holding any of govt offices are might be changed or retired at the time when you are reading this interview, so cross-check before appearing in any exam next future.
CSS Mock Interview by Syed Faizan Haider (ASP) Mock Interview | CSS-2020 Mock Interviews
Candidate Welcome by Panelists | CSS Q&A Session
now you introduce yourself to all of us
my name is syed faizan
i was born in rawalpindi soon after my
birth
i along with my family moved to rahimir
khan from where i got my initial
education till
class 4 then on i moved to karachi from
where i completed my education till my a
levels
and then i moved to lahore from where i
got my undergraduate degree in
accounting and finance from lumps
currently i’m living in islamabad i’ve
moved here so i’ve lived in multiple
cities all my life
apart from this throughout my academic
and professional journey i’ve
shown three consistent traits one is my
ambition
the second is my ability consistency
in achieving those ambitions
and third is my ability and desire to
learn diverse set of skills and
knowledge these three traits have
essentially allowed me
to get internships that some of the top
multinationals represent Pakistan in
debating and excel at
sports as well and after that i realized
that my
destiny lies in css and therefore i gave
the exam and today i have the pleasure
of sitting with you people
okay thank you so
i hope you have prepared yourself for
the interview
yes sir i’ve tried my best what do you
expect that what the
what type of questions you will be
asked
i said so the general
just name the topics which you have
prepared that you
anticipate that these questions could be
sir i feel that
they’d ask me about my optionals because
accounting and business are
non-conventional options or optional
subjects i feel that they will ask me
about that
current affairs i feel i will be
asked about particularly with regards
to what’s happening in usa
because i have us history as an optional
and i feel
some questions regarding my
efficiency when it comes to my
preferences i feel that these are the
questions which will primarily be asked
topics within these i feel that there
are multiple dimensional
dimensions you are multi dimensional
yeah
yes okay i think you were born in the
last century in the 20th century
yes what are the major events of the
last century which you remember
sir the the two world wars
i feel that they defined a lot of things
and then during the last century i
feel that
the the rise of islamic militancy
which culminated in 2001
911 attacks i feel that these two i
would primarily consider
how many years are in a century
you start from 1901 yeah and you
conclude
two thousand two thousand huge yes
time
sir formation of Pakistan
obviously is an important event as well
but i i the events i pointed out were
more in a global context how
they have impacted the world order as it
is right now
i feel that those are the two women the
world war what are your views about this
brexit
do you think it is good for the european
union or that
so for the european union i feel that
it is they have got a good deal
the deal that they have got right now
they are happy with it
i feel that the problem will be for the
united kingdom
in fact european union will survive
regardless
the problems will be with the the
united kingdom
so because now they have taken a step
with the nation
which has ruled the world for whole of
the centuries yes
sir i feel that exactly that is the
reason do you think they have not
thought about all these things
so when populist rhetoric takes
precedence over
they had plenty of time after
referendum they have been thinking for
two long years sid i feel that once the
populist rhetoric
sets in it is very difficult to roll it
back and i feel that
decisions made under the pretext of that
populist rhetoric
i often times that as we have seen in
Pakistan are oftentimes
counterproductive
and i feel that now they have
essentially this country which has ruled
over the world over you know centuries
has taken a step which is irreversible
in nature
and the consequences of which obviously
we we will see in the future but i feel
that they will
what are their arguments positive
arguments what they think what they have
gained
so they feel that the united kingdom is
now going to be a much more
uniform country in in a sense that now
they will not have the european
immigrants coming in
they will be that is the first the
second is that they feel that they will
be more independent in their decision
making
in terms of their trade laws in terms of
who they want to trade with
who they want to give you know
immigration status to and all of those
things
now they have got the whole world the
whole american continent
australia canada they will have
independent relations because here in
the european union they were stuck up
because of the european union
sir i do not feel
i do not yeah exactly that independence
they will have
that is the argument that they give and
third argument which they give is that
the less fortunate in the united kingdom
or the people who are hard working
people
you know who you call the working class
they will
now be economically advantaged
because of the immigrants not coming in
i feel these are the three primary
arguments that they give
what is the definition of crime so crime
is an act or a mission which
is which is contrary
to the laws which have been stated and
when when a moral value is codified in
the constitution or in a law
and then it is broken it becomes a crime
how do you see the future of democracy
in Pakistan
i feel that the future of democracy is
is bright
i feel that we are living in times
where
any other option other than democracy
will be very hard to to justify and
to implement
you say that it will be good but on what
you’re saying so i’m saying that because
we are no longer living in the 1900s
we have we have a free media we have an
educated
civil society a civil society which is
willing to stand up on certain
principles not all principles but still
certain principles they’re willing to
stand upon and the third i feel that now
after three consecutive transitions of
power the people have had a taste
of of political participation
particularly
over the last 10 years the political
participation has increased
and so now people are no longer ignorant
about how their country is being run or
who’s running them who’s running the
country
how do you assess the performance of
this government for the last two and a
half years
sir i feel that this government has
the benchmark that it set for him for
itself has not been met
undoubtedly it has not been met but
despite that there are positives to look
into as well
our problems are structural so you
cannot expect one government to come in
and
make sweeping reforms the structure
needs to be corrected and i feel that we
are on the path of making those
structural adjustments
can you tell me what are the
implications of covert 19 on
our society not economic side social
social side so first i feel that
what i’ve noticed in my personal
capacity is now the
the sense of family which was slowly
deteriorating has again sort of come up
because children who were excessively
you know
going to schools colleges universities
jobs they’ve got time to spend with
their families and
in my personal capacity i’ve seen that
that is is a positive thing which has
happened
the other thing sir i feel that
the the concept of self-sufficiency has
come into our society in which we have
decided to take
matters into our own hand when it comes
to education we
are now more self-reliant in terms of we
have gone towards online education our
systems have gone online
a third thing sir a social transition a
social transition which has taken place
because of covet
is now we have realized how important
health care
is for the country how how important
sustainable health care
and disaster management is for the
country and i feel that is a very good
thing the fourth thing which i feel is
very important
is that we have in a disaster situation
we have implemented this hybrid model
in which we had the political leadership
and operational capacity of other
institutions
and this has proven to be very
successful and so now we have a
model on how we can deal with future
problems if they arise anytime
thank you why there is upsurge in
violence in afghanistan
yes recent upsurge so we have seen that
the taliban
operate under the model which is fight
and negotiate this was a model which was
initially
started by the united states of america
but the taliban have actually
implemented it over
over the last few decades where they
fight and they negotiate the fight and
they negotiate they do it all the time
and they do these things simultaneously
taliban in an attempt to strengthen
their position on the negotiation front
are sort of engaging
in violence this is the first factor the
second factor is that there’s also space
which has been exploited by other
non-state actors which include is
and certain other factions
section six of the constitution
was amended in the 18th
amendment what amendment
was that or is that sir i cannot recall
what amendment was made in the section 6
of the constitution you know what is you
know what is section six
no i’m not aware of the constitution
very important you should know
about it i will read up on it sir how
will you evaluate the
the working of a bureaucratic missionary
so i feel that our bureaucratic
machinery
is has been
has been problematic in a lot of ways
where it has had its positives i feel
that it is important to outline the
negatives at this point in time because
the negatives have been very
far-reaching in terms of their impacts
these negatives i feel include
that this machinery is outdated in terms
of
we have not really tried to improve up
on the bureaucratic machinery which we
inherited after partition that is the
first thing
the second thing i feel that there is an
excessive divide between the
bureaucratic machinery and the
population i feel that this divide needs
to be
bridged so that bureaucrats are not
thought of as
the rulers in fact that thought of in in
in reality as civil servants i feel that
that that is
a second thing about bureaucratic
machinery i will the third thing
we are still living in the times of
paper and files
where the world has moved on to
information technology e-governance
and we have seen some institutions move
on to that model we have nadra and we
have the
these sort of institutions who have
inculcated information technology in
their
operations i feel if the bureaucratic
machinery as a whole
improves on this we can go a long way
prime minister inspection committee on
administrative reforms
has put up quite a number of proposals
to the prime minister
for improving the working of
bureaucratic missionary
can you tell us about those proposals
about a few
of them sir so from what i have read up
on and from what i remember
the first one was the some reforms
regarding recruitment
in which it was argued that people who
select groups in which they want to go
into should have
should give the exams of the optional
subjects
with regards to their with regards to
the group they want to go in so if
someone wants to go into the police
service they should have criminology if
someone wants to go into foreign
service they must have international
relations that that is
one of the reforms the other was i think
they also argued about security of
tenure
which is a controversial topic and there
was no conclusion i feel which was
reached
regarding this the third and i
think mr ishra tussain
argues vehemently about it is
increasing the sort of financial
compensation and bring it to market
level at least for the bureaucrats i
feel that
these are three of the reforms which i
remember from the many which were given
or you one of your weakness you have
mentioned is overthinking
what do you mean by this or overthinking
sid i feel that
in in routine tasks i
i tend to think if i can do this in this
manner
i can do it in this manner so i take my
time
to assess which option or which path i
should take
i feel that that oftentimes in in
in ways can be disadvantaged okay you
can you can
write some appropriate word overthinking
doesn’t
carry any sense right if it had i would
not have asked you this
question parliamentary committee on
accountability
what is what is its role and how it
functions
so the parliamentary committee on
accountability i’m not exactly sure of
it if you’d allow me to guess
is is headed by the leader of the
opposition
in the national assembly and its role
is to assess which government
projects which federal projects
whichever are being implemented are they
adhering to
principles of financial you know
financial righteousness
if you could say that so they hold
federal legislature accountable to
any expenses they are taking up and
those things but it how they do it
what is the motorcycle trendy that i’m
not exactly sure
officer foreign service is your second
choice
yes what is diplomatic community so
diplomatic immunity
is given to is a concept
in which foreign
diplomats foreign embassies they have an
immunity in a sense
that they’re not treated under the
same laws as as the host country
so a diplomat is immune to a lot of
a lot of the laws which are applicable
on these things in fact the united
states of america argued for raymond
davis
under the this pretext of diplomatic
immunity they felt that
he’s in fact he was not a diplomat
but they argued the case
on those basis that he should be given
diplomatic immunity
but but was he tried there in america on
the charges
on the i do not think he was he was
charged in america i’m not sure but he’s
supposed to
he is not you see action
will be taken against him not in the
host country
but in the country of his origin where
he can be taken to task legally
administratively
sir so from what i got from steve
cole’s book he wrote the directed at s
and how the cia and isi fight wars in
in afghanistan in in that book he
mentioned that they actually the
american government on behalf of raymond
davis paid blood money
to the victims here and i feel that if
that blood money was paid Pakistan did
not agree that he has diplomatic
immunity because in effect he was not a
diplomat he was not in the list of
diplomats the american had given to the
foreign ministry
and so compensation blood money was
paid according to Pakistani law and then
he was allowed
to leave so i feel that that means that
he cannot be tried in the united states
of america because he has been punished
here
right
you have opted for foreign service as
your second option
what do you think are the major
challenges of Pakistan’s foreign policy
ma’am the first challenge i feel which
is primary
is that decade in decade out we change
our direction
one decade we are going in one direction
and another decade we go in another
direction there is no consistency in
direction i feel whichever direction we
take if we stick to it
we will do good but every government
coming in and changing direction i feel
that that is a foreign
policy issue in Pakistan
similarly that is the first one the
second one i feel that is more
operational is how do we balance our
ties in the middle east
because middle east is important for us
iran is a neighbor saudi arabia is a
friendly country how do we
balance between them and the third
issue which i feel will be of immense
importance in the future
is now that we have bet on the chinese
investment due to cpec
and we see that a sort of a
collision is inevitable between the
united states of america and the chinese
because the chinese is a china is a
rising power how will we balance between
between that i feel that these three are
the primary challenges
would you kindly elaborate what you mean
by saying
that we keep on changing direction can
you elucidate with the example
right so
one government is very friendly with the
the saudis then there comes another
government
which is excessively friendly towards
the opposite block in the middle east
which is the turkish and the iranians
so that is a that is a contradiction i
and i understand that a government
should have the right to
to formulate its foreign relations but
there should be some
strategic strategic consistency
which should be there similarly
sometimes we are
very friendly with the united states of
america and i understand that that is
that is a transactional relationship i
understand that but
then sometimes we are excessively
friendly to the chinese we do not
maintain a balance
we do not maintain a consistency in who
we want to be friends with and who do we
do not want to be so good of friends
with
so from this emanate two questions
firstly is there any distinction between
rhetoric and policy definitely ma’am
definitely there is a difference between
rhetoric and policy
but a lot of times we we we let
retrick take precedence over what should
be strategically beneficial in fact when
you ask me of this
i think there was there were times when
the Pakistani president was slapping
around
you know in in a fun gesture the u.s
president
and then very soon after that within a
decade
we were organizing this islamic meeting
in
in in Pakistan so this is
not not this is extremes so we
even if we want to go to an extreme we
should stick to that extreme i feel
and the second question from because
as i said two questions emanate one
question i’ve already asked the second
question is
do you think that international system
is static
no it’s constantly changing so
but having said that ma’am why should
we be reactive
to the static to the changing world
model
we should be proactive we should align
ourselves
and in fact once we align ourselves we
should be the ones
changing the static nature not the ones
reacting to the changes happening around
interesting now tell me
you
have done environmental studies
what are the major environmental issues
for Pakistan
the first and foremost Pakistan is the
you know fifth most prone country to
environmental damage
despite the fact that we do not
contribute that much
to environmental degradation globally
that is the first thing that we are one
of the most prone
i think the second thing is how rising
sea levels
will affect Pakistani cities urban
cities karachi hyderabad
these cities are they do not have the
infrastructure
or the ability to be able to sustain a
rising sea level if it continues to rise
at the rate at which it is rising
as that is the other reason and third i
feel which i
personally felt change in four years of
my time in lahore when i went to lahore
there was no concept of smog at that
time but by the time i was graduating
from my university in four years
the smog was such that it was difficult
to breathe in and i
haven’t been to lahore in a recent time
but i’ve heard that it’s got even worse
lahar is one of the most
the worst in terms of breathing air so
so that is the third reason it is
also an urban city
the fourth i i think would be
unplanned urbanization
in Pakistan this is something which is
related to environment
and we must address this issue as well
with the rising middle class
urbanization
is going to take place but we must make
sure that we plan it properly
in cop 24 they spoke of blue
economies
do you have any idea about that ma’am
i’m unsure of it if you’d allow me to
guess
it is related to making seas
sustainable it is related to something
related to
the activities which take place within
the oceans and the seas
but i’m not very sure of this thank you
very much pizza
aslan what were the three main feature
of mento modular reform 1909
i have read this but i cannot recall it
at this point what is
a massory compromise sir
this was a compromise in which it was
stated that beyond
the 4360 was the line i i think i do not
remember exactly but beyond which
slavery is not going to be extended and
then
missouri was to be existed was to be
admitted to the united states of america
as a slave state and maine
was to be admitted into the united
states of america as a
free state so this was a basically a
compromise between anti-slavery and
pro-slavery people in the united states
of america
and what was third june poland
so the third zone plan i’m unsure of
it
i do not my last question is what was
the impact of
american war of independence and french
revolution
sir i think
american revolution
in in in some ways inspired the french
revolution
so because the americans here had
overthrown
a colonial power which was the united
kingdom and it
it inspired the french people also to
to rise up against monarchy and
americans had not just fought the
colonial power they fought for democracy
that fought for self-rule
and so the people in france i feel were
also inspired by this fact that we
should have a self rule
thank you thank you
fathan the only thing i can tell you
that you keep it up
my shuttle you are intelligent you are
articulate
your communication skills are very good
you are quite confident but
now keep it up thank you sir
because you are competing with the best
of the best
is very tough competition punjabi and
there are people like
you not many people like me so you have
to be
keep in view that you will maintain
objectivity be analytical
and what you are thinking express it
if you get an opportunity so
from today i think you are very good
like
further
is very important
fizan you are very capable mashallah but
there is a knowledge gap
fill it up bitter because you have very
little time i didn’t ask you the
question
i wanted to just for a teaser that do
you know the difference
i mean why are diplomatic diplomats
given diplomatic immunity
i’m unsure of it man basically
because
they are representatives of the
sovereign yes and a sovereign cannot be
subject to the laws of another sovereign
state
and that’s why they are immune right
right right
so it’s not given
it is mandatory upon them
because if i for example am posted to
usa and i succumb to those laws
then i am not representing the sovereign
state of Pakistan with this flag
then i am subject of that state and i’m
not
so i would not okay so that’s why
diplomatic immunities and privileges
or vienna convention 1961 may
do remember that 1961 diplomatic
immunities
in 1964 which was on councillor
immunities
and counselor immunities are different
from diplomatic communities
and the reason is that a diplomat is a
representative of the sovereign
but the councilor is supposed to give
services
he is not representative of the
sovereign
he is part of the team that gives
services therefore they do not enjoy the
same immunities
as a diplomat would in Pakistan we have
the same foreign
service in which you can be posted as
council general you can be posted as
ambassador
so as ambassador your immunities will be
different as council general it will be
different
in other countries the counselor core is
very different from the diplomatic code
they have two streams of services
so just to educate you on that for your
interview
thank you thank you