What ails competitive exam aspirants? Here's how journey to most prestigious positions in Indian establishment looks like

Delhi, Pune, Chandigarh, and Samastipur are four major cities that have shared a common tragedy in the past year or so. All these cities have witnessed the death of their young residents by suicide with the common theme being their preparation for civil service examinations. With the advent of a National Tele Mental Health programme, by the government through the Budget 2022, that is supposed to ensure access to quality, standardized, and free 24x7 mental health services to all, especially to people living in the rural areas where many aspirants come from, the focus is back on what ails the people who are pursuing government jobs.

Recognise strengths and weaknesses, say Rankers

Though candidates believe cracking these exams gets them one step closer to some of the most prestigious positions in the Indian establishment, uncertainty and struggles of achieving the coveted positions can be troubling for them. But for some the formulas of success exist despite the challenges.

Omkar Pawar, who gained an All India Rank (AIR) of 455 and just recently got selected in the Indian Police Service (IPS), revealed that feeling uncertain about your career is fairly common in a field where the success rate is so low. "I had attempted UPSC six times in total and when I saw that there weren't many breakthroughs in how I was going about it, I pursued a plan B in MPSC while doing the latter. I cleared my UPSC in the fourth attempt and here I am ready to join the training period of my service in March," said Pawar.

He added that most of the times candidates lack an exit plan which can help them transition easily to other career opportunities. "My advice would be to have an exit plan wherein you have an idea of what you want to do in the next four years if things don't pan out accordingly. You can pursue MA, Public Policy, and MBA or put your thinking skills to form startups, the options are endless," added Pawar who believes career counselling is important too especially for candidates from rural areas.

For candidates like Vinayak Mahamuni, who gained an All India Rank of 95 in the UPSC examinations, individuals losing their late stages of teen years to limiting their social interactions to pursue UPSC examinations day in and day out is not worth it.

"You should not shape your entire life based on civil service examinations. I think spending time with friends, family members, making memories, etc. are important rather than just sitting 24 hours inside a library to clear an exam that has a more than 99% chance of not being successful but at the same time if you are dedicated to it, you should not take any shortcuts and have backup career choices at the same time," said Vinayak who hails from Latur and did his Btech in petrochemical engineering followed by a two-year stint at IBM.

"Be confident about yourself, know your strengths and weaknesses, have backup options, don't rely on toppers for answers as they can be wrong too, keep checking out the syllabus and previous papers and remember that at the end of the day it is just an exam. I personally never had to rely on test series or work on my writing that much because I was confident in those aspects, in the same way, others have to decide what they are capable of," said Vinayak, who achieved AIR 95 in his fifth attempt of UPSC.

'Not enough opportunities to recognise strengths and weaknesses'

While Rankers have attained the feet of clearing civil service examinations by understanding their strengths and weaknesses in their own words, for aspiring candidates like Sudarshan Sase they just remain buzzwords.

The banking aspirant feels that one of the major challenges for him is not being able to access question papers, answer keys, etc. of his examinations. "How do I know my strengths and weaknesses if I am not being able to access questions papers, answer keys after my examinations? Which are vital to have an understanding of how I am doing academically," Sudarshan asserted to the Free Press Journal.

On the flip side, he believes that because such examinations are prone to errors, it's understandable that answer keys are not revealed as it creates a lot of doubts in the candidates' minds and they start being sceptical of their goals. "Other career options have never been a consideration as Banking exams in itself are easier and provide opportunities that I probably won't find with a private job," said Sudarshan, who has attempted 4 Prelims and 3 Mains of different exams for IBPS positions.

Nothing better than government jobs for aspirants

A similar point about consideration for civil service or other government exams was echoed by Sonukumar Singh, a railway candidate hailing from Bihar who thinks the job security, pay scale, etc. provided by government jobs are something too long for. Sonukumar, who saw the recent furore on the requirement to write a second qualifying exam for Railways firsthand, blamed the lapses in how a routine is scheduled for the latter. "When you see an exam's notification being released three-five years prior and still don't see it being conducted, you should know how serious the situation is. No process makes it possible for the authorities to stick to the schedule and that dampens our hopes of the future," Sonukumar added.

Vacancies at an all-time low, while Suicides remain high

About MPSC, UPSC, and many other civil service examinations, Raju Kendre, the founder of Eklavya India Movement, a career counselling organisation based in Yavatmal which has been working in promoting higher education and leadership qualities among young students, said that obsession with clerical jobs, lack of vacancies and talent to pursue fellowship programmes, etc. are a hindrance to students' ambitions and the high number of suicides by aspirants are worrisome.

"Education is your capital India and the idea is to benefit societies through it but how can you do that when these examinations fail to make you capable. Even before 2010, applications ranged from 2-3 lakhs in number while vacancies being in dismal figures too and now you are looking at a situation where applications range from 10-11 lakh in numbers with vacancies halving down to half of what it was 10 years ago. There are fellowship programmes in every government department but you need individuals who have the industrial and technical expertise," claimed Raju who praised initiatives by Tata and Azim Premji institutes to make candidates less reliant on government exams, while also prioritising the need for dissemination of the chances in Law, Liberal Arts, Artificial Intelligence and Media to the rural population which comprises the majority of the country.