I've sat on an OCS selection board. Just relax and be yourself. There's a whole package of crap the officers on the board get and have to go through before they show up . It tells them what to look for and what to ask, etc.
It's not a grilling or anything like that. No one will ask trick questions or anything like that either.
The board members will divide up specific areas to ask things of each person, but that doesn't really matter to you, since you see them only once. They aren't looking for ways to fail you, nor trip you up, even though they'll all ask you questions.
You don't really need to know jack about being an officer in your case either. It is assumed that if you pass the board, and pass OCS, and pass OBC, you'll be trained enough to learn how to become one. They don't expect a civillian to be General Patton.
There weren't any set questions really. The usual why's and what's, but most of that was just to calm people down and get them talking. We asked questions based on what the person said, and what their background was.
Some guys had run their own business. So we'd ask quesitons on how they did things that had to do with leadership and managment of stuff, and some technical things to see if they really knew what they were talking about (even if we had no clue what they were talking about
).
Some guys had limited leadership experience, but a drive or "hunger" that was pretty obvious. We'd ask guys like that questions about what they'd done in the past that they may not thought of that gave us a better understanding of where they were coming from.
It's not like a job interview, where you're looking for the best qualified guy. It was more like you were making a recomendation on if a cannidate had potential, and had the raw material required. The officers on the boards are just line officers, and not some admin guys that specialize in this stuff. They aren't "human resources" or anything. They just make a gut decision based on their own experience. There's nothing that "they want to hear" because they'll go back to their unit after the board and not think twice aobut anything you said. The Army does it this way because it wants REAL officers making these recomendations, and not some crap that you could make a formula out of. They don't ask tough questions because they don't know any. They also don't need to know any. By the time the interview is over, they'll know if they'll recomend you or not. There's no jury deliberations or anything. It's a simple, quick, fair, and good system.
Be honest, be yourself and stay calm. It's pretty rough on your end (due to self-induced pressure), but just relax. Don't try to BS or "oversell" yourself. That's easy to see through right away, and NOT what I want in an officer. Don't try to guess what they want. There's not really a right or wrong answer to anything. No one on the board is trying to cheat you out of anything or blockading you. The board itself has no idea whatsoever about how many will be needed, or anything else. They only make recomendations on the individual. They won't be looking to pass 3 out of 4 or anything like that. They can recomend all, or none, or any number in between, so you aren't really going up against anyone else in line. It's all about you.
All the folks that stood before the board I was on were top notch folks. If you've gotten to the board stage, you're doing good. I can't stress being yourself hard enough. Just go with what's going on and you'll do fine.
Ross