Indian Army Officer
Primarily, as an Officer in the Indian Army, you will be involved in the following areas of work:
Protecting the nation from external threats and preventing from present and future external threats
Indian Army protects India’s territories and defend the country’s people from territorial aggression of other nations during war time. During peace time, Indian Army deploys its officers and soldiers at strategic locations to act as a deterrent to and prevent any potential attacks by unfriendly nations.
Protecting the nation from internal threats and preventing from present and future internal threats
Indian Army also defend the country from internal threats, such as those from the terrorists and armed anti-national groups. Indian Army fights and defeats attacks from such terrorists or anti-national groups and prevent potential attacks.
Helping other nations
Indian Army has been a part of United Nation’s Peacekeeping Forces which is generally deployed when required in various countries to protect the countries from internal or external threats, mostly internal threats from civil wars, acts of terrorism, etc.
Helping people in their hour of crisis
Be it crisis arising from natural calamities such as flood and tornadoes or major accidents such as fire and bridge collapse which require search and rescue, relief operations, emergency construction of infrastructure, etc., Indian Army is pressed into service. Indian Army officers and the soldiers have the highest levels of skills to deal with such disastrous situations. Indian Army not only serves India in such hours of crisis but also help other countries when required.
Joining the Army
You can join the Indian Army in any one of the following combat arms and services (these are generally referred to as Corps) depending upon your qualifications, career entry pathway, and training. For description of the Corpos, please refer to the specialisations.
Your Deployment
You can join the Indian Army as a Permanent Commission or Short Service Commission Officer. Short Service Commission (SSC) is for 14 years (initially for 10 years and then extendable up to another 4 years). Permanent Commissions is for lifetime till your age of retirement.
Your work roles will be determined by the Corps in which you are attached and by your rank. These Corps are functional and specialised work divisions of the Indian Army. Broadly, these Corps are classified into three types – Strike, Holding and Mixed.
Officers, Soldiers and other ranked personnel of these Corps are deployed under six field operational commands (Central, Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern, South Western) or the training command or other strategic force commands or Army institutions. Higher ranked Officers are also placed sometimes at the Army Headquarters in Delhi.
Field Deployment
As per the Army organisational structure, you will be deployed in a field unit. Your deployment depends upon your Corps, which in turn depends upon your qualifications, entry pathway and training in the Army. The field formation is explained below in a top to down approach:
Command: Each Command consists of 2 or more Corps.
Corps: Each Corps consists of 3 to 4 Divisions.
Division: A Division consists of 3 to 4 Brigades. At present the Indian Army has 40 Divisions.
Brigade: A Brigade consists of 3,000 combat soldiers with other personnel from different Corps. A Brigade is commanded by a Brigadier. In general, a Brigade has three Infantry Battalions along with support personnel from different other work areas.
Battalion: A battalion consists of four companies.
Company: A company consists of three platoons.
Platoon: A platoon consists of three section.
Section: For field formation, the smallest unit in the Army is a Section. A section consists of 10 personnel.
Work in the Army
The Indian Army is tasked with one or more of the following during wartime and /or peacetime. You will be directly involved in one or more of these or work in a support function, depending upon to which Corps you are attached to:
Enterprising: You should have interests for Enterprising Occupations. Enterprising occupations involve taking initiatives, initiating actions, and planning to achieve goals, often business goals. These involve gathering resources and leading people to get things done. These require decision making, risk taking and action orientation.
Realistic: You should have interests for Realistic Occupations. Realistic occupations involve more practical and hands-on activities than paperwork or office work. Realistic occupations often involve physical activities for getting things done using various tools and equipment.
Investigative: You should have interests for Investigative Occupations. Investigative occupations involve working with ideas and quite a lot of thinking, often abstract or conceptual thinking. These involve learning about facts and figures; involve use of data analysis, assessment of situations, decision making and problem solving.
Abilities
Abstract Reasoning: The ability to understand ideas which are not expressed in words or numbers; the ability to understand concepts which are not clearly expressed verbally or otherwise.
Articulation: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
Bodily-Kinaesthetic Intelligence: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and bodily motion; the ability to keep or regain your body balance when in an unstable position; the ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, hands, arms, fingers, or legs.
Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules and common logic to specific problems to produce answers that are logical and make sense. For example, understanding the reasons behind an event or a situation using general rules and common logic.
Emotional Intelligence: The ability to understand your own and others' emotions and feelings; empathy for others; adjusting your behaviour or self-control and self-regulation according to others' emptions and situations.
Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
Hand-Eye Coordination: The ability to make quick and precise hand movements as per visual observations and understanding (that is, what you see and comprehend).
Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information from various sources, concepts, and theories to form general rules or conclusions. For example, analysing various events or situations to come out with a set of rules or conclusions.
Inter-Personal: The ability to build and maintain good relationships with others at workplaces and elsewhere.
Intrapersonal: The ability to clearly understand your strengths and weaknesses, what your capabilities are, what you can do and cannot do, what you like and dislike.
Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
Mental Stamina: The ability to sustain prolonged mental effort.
Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
Numerical Reasoning: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and perform other basic numerical calculations correctly.
Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
Physical Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a long period of time without being distracted.
Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
Verbal Reasoning: The ability to think and reason with words; the ability to reason out ideas expressed in words.
Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Knowledge
English Language: Knowledge about English grammar, words, spelling, sentence construction, using English to communicate with others, reading in English, etc.
Public Safety and Security: Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to maintain law and order situations, providing state or national security for protecting geographical territories, marine territories and sky from potential enemy attacks and protecting people and properties.
Skills
Active Learning: Focused and continuous learning from various sources of information, observation and otherwise for application in getting work done.
Active Listening: Giving full attention to what other people are saying, understanding the points being made by others, asking questions, etc.
Communication in English: Skills in communicating effectively in writing as well as verbally with others in English language.
Communication in Vernacular Languages: Skills in communicating effectively in writing as well as verbally with others in a local or indigenous language such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, etc.
Coordination: Skills in working together with other people to get things done.
Critical Thinking: Skills in analysis of complex situations, using of logic and reasoning to understand the situations and take appropriate actions or make interpretations and inferences.
Directing: Skills in directing others' actions to get things done.
Instruction: Skills in training others how to do something.
Judgment and Decision Making: Skills in considering pros and cons of various decision alternatives; considering costs and benefits; taking appropriate and suitable decisions.
Managing Human Resources: Skills in motivating, developing, and leading people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
Negotiation: Skills in bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
Persuasion: Skills in persuading others to change their minds or behaviour.
Problem Solving: Skills in analysis and understanding of problems, evaluating various options to solve the problems and using the best option to solve the problems.
Reading Comprehension: Skills in understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
Supervising: Skills in Supervising and monitoring performance of others, businesses, and different projects.
Technical: Skills in using various technologies and technical methods to get things done or solve problems.
Time Management: Skills in prioritizing work, managing time effectively.
Personality
You are always or mostly organised in your day-to-day life and activities.
You are always or mostly careful about your actions and behaviour.
You are always or mostly disciplined in your action and behaviour.
You are always calm or generally remain calm in most situations.
You are helpful to others sometimes.You don't trust others easily.
You are always practical or in most situations.
You always or mostly prefer to stick within a routine or carry out routine and repetitive activities.
