Join the Combined Defence Services for an Exciting Career

Every year the Union Public Service Commission conducts, the "Combined Defence Services"Examination (CDS), twice for recruitment into the Indian Military Academy, officers Training Academy, Indian Naval Academy and Indian Air Force Academy.

The Notification for CDS is generally released in the months of October and June, and the examinations are held in February and November respectively.CDS Result will be declared in July 2017. Successful aspirants are taken into the respective Academies after an interview conducted by the Services Selection Board (SSB).

CDS Orientation Training Institutes 

If the candidates clear the interview rounds and according to their merit, they are sent to the following institutes for orientation training:

1.  Indian Military Academy, Dehradun 
2.  Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala 
3.  Air Force Academy, Hyderabad 
4.  Officers Training Academy, Chennai 
5.  Officers Training Academy, Chennai 21st SSC Women (Non-technical) 

Women are only eligible for Officers Training Academy, Chennai.

A permanent commission is given those who join the first three institutes. Short term service commission is given to cadets passing out of Officers Training Academy. While filling the application form, applicants are required to fill their preferences in the application form.

The SSB interview takes place for approximately a week, throughout which a candidate goes through various physical and psychological tests to determine whether or not he is officer material. Candidates who have applied for Air Force Academy are also tested for Pilot Aptitude Battery Test, apart from the SSB interview. Once all these tests are cleared, candidates go through rigorous medical examination before finally getting admitted into the above-mentioned academies, and only after successful completion of the training program, candidates are inducted into the armed forces.

Career Opportunities

Many exciting career opportunities are offered to young men and women once they enter the Armed forces. Career in the forces, in addition as a career, is also an adventure in itself. To make sure that suitable candidates are chosen, a comprehensive selection process is conducted by the armed forces through Service Selection Board (SSB) interview.

This system of selection is incorporated from the “trait theory” of leadership which assumes that every leader must have some specific and pre-determined leadership traits. The theory,assumesthat such traits can be acquired by a candidate with the passage of time meaning so that a person once rejected in an SSB interview is likely to succeed if he obtains some of the traits with the passage of time.

In addition, psychological and mental strength of the candidate vis-a-vis requirements of the Armed Forces is judged and finally an overall assessment of the personality of a candidate is made by way of exhaustive personal interviews.

The CDS written examination is an offline objective examination. Exam for the Indian Military Academy, Indian Naval Academy and Air Force Academy will be for 300 marks, while Officers Training Academy exam will be of 200 marks. The written exam if for 2 hours, with each section will have 120 questions. For every correct answer the candidate will secure .8 marks, while for every incorrect answer .33 marks will be deducted. The three sections in the examination are:

• English 
• General Knowledge 
• Elementary Mathematics. 

After clearing the written examination, the candidates are eligible for the Interview round. The interview round comprises of two stages:

Stage 1: This stage consists of Officer Intelligence Rating tests and Picture Perception Description Test. The candidates will be judged on the basis of their performance in both OIR Test and PP&DT.

Stage 2: This stage consists of Interview, group testing officer tasks, psychology tests and the conference. This test is conducted over a period of four days.

In personality assessment test the candidate is assessed by three different experts viz the Interviewing Officer, Group Testing Officer and the Psychologist. There is no separate weightage for each test and the marks allotted by the experts are given only after taking into consideration the performance of the candidate in all the tests. The marks are also based on the previous performance of the candidate. Lastly, the candidates are recommended or not recommended by the experts and their word is final.