Detailed Application Form (DAF) is filled after clearing preliminary stage of Civil Services Exam.
I was clueless about how to go around filling it, and had effectively no one to turn to. Thankfully there were tons of pointers and actual DAFs available on the internet. Hope this helps anyone else stumbling their way through the process 🙂
This is two page summary that is usually with the board. The service preferences were asked for after mains result, as an addendum. My service preferences beyond IRS are increasingly moot (or random because I filled it on whim); I would have preferred to go back to private sector instead.
These major subheadings that you need to fill in can possibly determine your interview in entirety. If you read my interview transcript here, 90% of my questions originated from DAF. I could have anticipated and prepared for most of such questions.
These are broadly what is important in DAF:
- Prizes, Medals, Scholarships
- Sports/NCC
- Positions of Leadership
- Extracurricular activities, interests and hobbies
- Educational details
- Employment details
All of these holistically come together to define you for the board. It is therefore important to put the best version of yourself you can, on paper. Some pointers:
- Do not to lie on the DAF. It’s easier to figure out than you think.
- Prizes, sports and leadership positions are to be filled in for college/university level only. Do not put class 10th chess championship here 🙂
- Leave the space blank if you didn’t do anything in that particular field (prizes, sports, leadership). Have a reasonable answer to why you did that. The board might not even care to ask.
- Important: write things in a way that the board WANTS to question you on them. Give them SOMETHING to go on. Leave out a trail of crumbs and hope they follow it. You will then pre-empt a large part of your interview. Else, you are on their mercy and mood.
- Re: interests and hobbies. Do not put open-ended ones. Be specific and prepare them thoroughly. For example, one of the interests I had put in was swimming. I was prepared to answer how many individual gold medals Michael Phelps had won in Olympics or 100m freestyle record held by an Indian.
- Everyone has something that they like doing, if not studying. Drill down to it and write it in way that attracts some questioning. If I were out of ideas, I might have just put – watching animated movies/tv – and then justified as a form of art with an ode to John Lasseter, if questioned.
- Do not put too much information (I felt I did, after clearing mains and re-looking at my DAF). Put 3 interests max. Try to have a common thread running through your DAF that can define you as a person (I couldn’t as I have done diverse things, smh).
- Prepare well for every word you have written on the DAF. Obviously, home state, meaning of name, graduation subjects, work experience, et al HAVE to be prepared thoroughly. The board might or might not ask these fairly obvious questions.
- Double check, then triple check what you have written. You won’t get to make changes if you make a mistake.
- Circulate it to your friends (non-CSE aspirants will be even better) and ask if they find anything odd. Do this over 3–4 times before you lock down your DAF.
Go to the interview with an open mind. Despite what UPSC says, the board can and will judge you on knowledge, especially if it should be something you should have known based on what you have written in DAF (not on bouncer questions, do not be afraid of them).
Finally, the personality test is a conversation, at the end of which you will be judged for what you spoke and how you spoke it. Be confident, be polite, be considerate, and above all, be rational.
English, Agastya 
HELLO HOW DID YOU GOT AREA SALES MANAGER JOB.. I MEAN YOU APPLIED FOR IT.. OR U GOT JOB OFFER ? IT WAS BASED ON GRADUATION ??
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Hello Sir, I am currently a student of Delhi University pursuing B.Sc Electronics. After completing my 12th class, I took a drop year to prepare for the JEE examination. Even though I was able to clear the exam, I could not fetch a good enough rank to help me secure admission to a government engineering college. I intend to appear for the UPSC exam after my graduation. Will the drop year reflect poorly on me during the personality test?
Eagerly awaiting your reply,
Thank you
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No it won’t. They might be curious if it catches their eyes, but it won’t reflect poorly at all
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Hello Sir,
Your tips are very valuable. I have worked as a freelance academic writer for two years. Should I mention it on DAF?
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Yeah you can put it under interests, they can ask you what you write about, why those topics, et cetera
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Hello sir
I am in 1st year of my graduation, how will proceed to prepare DAF like what activities should I do for strong my DAF during my college,I am a serious aspirant of upsc because I make my mind for upsc when I was in 11th standard please help sir ….
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Do things that you like to do. DAF is not your CV and doing/not doing x thing is not gonna change much
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Also, where can we mention the research papers that we have published? Please suggest what all things we should avoid mentioning in the DAF?
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1. Better off asking someone who has actually published research papers and appeared for interview. I am but a simple graduate 🙈
2. Pretty much given the broad outline under the DAF tab, but don’t make it too complicated it’s not your CV. Give information that you want to be asked questions about.
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Sir, where can we mention any volunteering(Teach for India) work done during college in DAF? Is it advisable to mention it?
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Under extra curricular activities and interests. Yeah sure why not mention it
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Where do we mention internships done in college in the DAF?
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You can mention it in your work experience. But be prepared to be questioned on it.
DAF is not a CV. If you think your DAF already has too many things, you can skip internships. There are no hard and fast rules here.
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Do they check the certificates of extracurricular done in college because I might have lost some of those 😦
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No, they don’t check certificates of extra-curricular activities
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Sir position of responsibility is important ? ( I really don’t have one)
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It’s better to have something to write rather than nothing (without lying of course). But in worst case you do not, I don’t think it will adversely affect your interview.
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sir please suggest which test series and mock interview u joined ?
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I had joined the following:
Test series – Insightsonindia one for both prelims and mains
Mock interview – KSG and Samkalp
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