UPSC ISS Interview Process: The Full Day at Dholpur House

The UPSC ISS interview is held at the Union Public Service Commission office at Dholpur House, Shahjahan Road, New Delhi. The day runs in a fixed sequence: reporting in your session, security checks, deposit of belongings, document verification with a briefing, the waiting hall, and finally the board room for a conversation of 20 to 30 minutes.

Half the fear of interview day is simply not knowing what the day looks like. So today, Day 2 of our series, walks through it hour by hour, using the accounts of recommended candidates who have written down exactly what happened to them.

When do you report, and how do you know your date?

Your exact date and session come only through the e-summon letter, which is generated after you complete the fifteen day portal step and is downloaded from the UPSC websites. The press note is explicit that requests to change the date and time are not ordinarily entertained, so book your travel around the summon, not the other way round.

Interviews run in two sessions. In the 2023 cycle, the published schedule ran a forenoon session from 9 in the morning and an afternoon session from 1 in the afternoon. Candidate accounts in the transcripts match this: afternoon candidates describe reaching the campus between 12 and 12:30.

What happens after you enter the campus?

Piecing together the candidate accounts, the sequence is consistent across years.

First, security checks at the gate. Note one rule printed on the press note itself: mobile phones are banned in the UPSC campus. Plan to leave your phone at your hotel or with a companion, and carry a printed copy of everything you might otherwise open on a screen.

Second, belongings go to a locker room. One candidate wrote that only documents could be carried beyond this point.

Third, document verification in a hall, along with a briefing. This is where the originals listed in the press note matter: proof of age, educational qualification, community certificate where applicable, and disability certificate where applicable, along with the e-summon letter. The press note warns that a candidate who cannot produce the required originals is not allowed to appear before the board, so this checklist deserves the same seriousness as any paper you wrote in June.

Fourth, the waiting hall. Candidates wait in groups and are called in turn. One account describes a twenty minute wait before being escorted to the interview hall. Many candidates report that this wait, surrounded by other qualified candidates, is the most nervous stretch of the entire day. Expect it, and it loses half its power.

Fifth, the board room. You are walked in, you greet the board, the chairperson asks you to sit, and the most important conversation of your year begins.

What is the board room actually like?

Kinder than the waiting hall imagines it. Across four years of transcripts, boards consistently open gently. In two separate 2020 accounts, the chairperson began by telling the candidate that this is a personality test, that the board should be treated as friends, and that the candidate should relax. Another candidate who fumbled with nerves was told to take their time, with the board adding that they were not there to test English.

None of this means the questions are soft. It means the hostility most candidates rehearse against does not exist, and the energy spent bracing for it is wasted.

Three practical habits from real candidates

The transcripts also record what smart candidates did outside the room, and all three habits are worth copying.

One candidate reached Delhi two days early and did a dry run to the venue the day before, so that on interview morning the route held no surprises. Travel reimbursement, for the record, has in recent cycles been limited to second class or sleeper class rail fare, so plan the budget accordingly.

Carry a document folder arranged in the order of the press note checklist, with originals and photocopies separated, so that verification takes two minutes instead of ten nervous ones.

And decide in advance what you will do in the waiting hall: revise your own application form, breathe, and nothing else. Comparing preparation with the candidate beside you, in that hall, at that hour, has never once helped anyone.

Tomorrow, Day 3: the single document from which most of your questions will come. Your DAF is the question paper, and we will prove it.

For the free ISS Interview Starter Kit with fifty real board questions, send the word INTERVIEW on WhatsApp to  +91 842591 5355.

Frequently Asked Questions

Practice. Improve. Repeat.