If you have ever been on a job interview this is the same thing only you are meeting with three Officers from the local Battalion. Usually they are of the rank of Captain or Higher. You will usually sit across a table from the three officers and they will ask you a series of questions to determine if you possess the qualities that they believe the Army is looking for in an officer.

They will ask you all sorts of questions pertaining to the contents of your application and in some cases to provide more detail about some of the information in there. What follows comes from USAREC Reg 601-91 which provides interviewers with the questions and guidelines for evaluating the Interview. In general the process takes 30 to 60 minutes.

Previously, completed applications were sent to Ft. Knox where a selection board met monthly to approve or deny applications, but a recent change has left the selection decision up to the Battalion.

A fellow OCS applicant asked me for some pointers for excelling at the Battalion Board. Here is the advice I gave him:

The first time I went through Battalion it was just like an intense job interview. This is not an interrogation. They are not trying to get you to confess to being the gunman in the Grassy Knoll. They just want to see how you present yourself and how you can think on your feet.

With that in mind here are a few tips:

1. If it is a general question try to look from one member to the next as you answer.
2. However, if it is a specific question, about something you have said, look at the officer that asked the question.
3. Stop and think about each question before you answer. Ask yourself what you are really being asked. Sometimes you will be asked the same question in two different ways to see how you handle yourself. At other times, the question will have deeper implications or it may be a trap intended to trip you up should you not stop and think. The Board wants to see how preceptive you are. Again this is not an interrogation but that does not mean that they will not test you.
4. Be aware of current events. I was asked questions about the upcoming Super Bowl. I believe they wanted to see how I would handle an unexpected line of questioning. Again goes to how you handle yourself.
5. Explain yourself but keep your answers concise. They want to hear that you can speak intelligently but they also want to see that you know when to shut up.
6. Most Important - Speak from your heart and your mind. Don't go fishing for the answer that you think they want to hear. Give them the one that you believe. A great example of what not to do could be seen in the movie The Untouchables . In it there is a scene where Ness (Costner) and Malone (Connery) are interviewing police cadets with the hopes of making them part of Ness' task force. One of the cadets continually searches for the textbook answer to the questions Ness and Malone were asking. By fishing for the "text book" answers the came off looking like a dolt. Don't be him.