Prasad Katims

If you are preparing for a job interview there’s a good chance the interviewer will ask you competency-based questions (CBQs). Your success at the interview will hinge on how well you are able to respond and structure your answers.

CBQs are used by companies to see how you have acted in certain situations that might be common in the job you’re applying for. Afterall, if you were asked if you work well under pressure, you would probably just say yes. But that doesn’t tell the interviewer much at all. So they could rephrase this as a CBQ and ask you to give an example of a time you were under pressure at work, and how you handled the situation.

Different companies will use CBQs at different stages of their interview process. For example, Amazon have 14 Leadership Principles which they proudly share on their careers page. They hire future ’Amazonians' based on these principles. If you happen to apply for a job with them, your final-stage interview will be a CBQ interview where they will ask you to give examples of where you have demonstrated qualities that echo their leadership principles.

Some common examples of CBQs are:

Knowing the question is half the battle, but the bonus points come into play with how you structure your answer. To guide you in answering a CBQ, use the following format:

Situation: Give a brief description of the situation. Action: What action did you take? Result: What was the outcome? Learning: What did you learn from this all, and would you do anything differently next time?

So let’s see how a response would look to one of the above examples:

Interviewer: Talk me through a time when you had to deal with a difficult client or customer.

The Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) is a compulsory savings and retirement fund for eligible employees.

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has fixed the interest rate at 8.15% for the financial year 2022-23. There was a hike in the EPF account interest rate by 0.05%. The interest rate for the EPF account was 8.10% for FY 2021-22.

Under EPF regulations, employees must contribute 12% of their basic salary to this fund each month. Employers contribute a matching amount to their employees’ PF accounts.

The funds deposited in the EPF accounts earn interest yearly.

After retiring, employees can withdraw the total amount accumulated in their EPF account. Under certain circumstances, employees can also make premature withdrawals from their EPF account. Let’s discuss them in detail.

Unemployment: If an individual has been unemployed for over a month, he/she can withdraw up to 75% of the total accumulated amount. If the unemployment period stretches over two months, the remaining 25% can also be withdrawn.

Education: PF account holders can withdraw up to 50% of their total contribution to the EPF to pay for their higher education or their children’s education costs after class 10. However, this withdrawal can be made only after contributing a minimum of seven years towards the EPF account.

Marriage: An account holder can withdraw up to 50% of the employee’s share to pay for necessary expenses for his/her marriage, or the marriage of the account holder’s son, daughter, brother, or sister. However, this provision is applicable only after completing seven years of PF contribution.

Specially-abled individuals: Specially-abled account holders can withdraw 6 months of basic wage along with a dearness allowance or employee share with interest (whichever is less) to pay for the equipment cost. This facility has been introduced to ease the financial burden of purchasing expensive equipment.

Medical emergencies: An EPF account holder can withdraw the balance to pay for urgent medical treatments for certain diseases for self or immediate family members. The withdrawal amount is limited to six months of basic wage and dearness allowance or the employee share along with interest, whichever is less.

Existing debts: Individuals can withdraw 36 months of basic wage + dearness allowance or the total of employee and employer share along with interest to pay their home loan EMIs. This facility is available only after a minimum of 10 years of contribution towards the EPF account.

Purchase residential property or land plots: The PF withdrawal rules allow the account holder to make a premature withdrawal to purchase empty land or prefabricated houses.

In 2022, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) revised its regulations on Provident Fund (PF) account withdrawals. These changes aim to make it easier for subscribers experiencing financial difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic to access their PF funds.

Under the new regulations, PF account holders can withdraw money equivalent to three months of their basic salary plus dearness allowance or 75% of the net balance in their EPF account, whichever is lower.

These withdrawal requests can be submitted online and will be processed within three working days. Offline claims, on the other hand, can take up to 20 days to process

The withdrawal of EPF balance can be made by submitting a physical or online application.

Download the new Composite Claim Form (Aadhaar)/Composite Claim Form (non-Aadhaar) to withdraw the EPF balance.

The EPFO has an online withdrawal facility which has made the process more comfortable and less time-consuming.

To apply for the withdrawal of EPF online through the EPF portal, some conditions must be met:

The conditions that must be fulfilled by an employee to be eligible for EPF withdrawal are outlined below:

You can make either a partial or complete withdrawal from your EPF account.

You can fully withdraw your EPF balance under certain cases, such as:

1. When you have retired.

2. When you have been unemployed for more than two months. You have to get an attestation from a gazetted officer to make the withdrawal.

Partial withdrawal from the EPF account can be made under a few circumstances.

EPF corpus withdrawal is tax-free, but only if certain conditions are met. To qualify for tax exemption, an employee must contribute to the EPF account for five consecutive years. If there is a break in contributions for five years, the EPF amount becomes taxable for that financial year.

If an employee withdraws their EPF corpus prematurely, tax is deducted at source. However, no TDS is deducted, if the amount is less than Rs 50,000. For withdrawals more than that, it is compulsory to furnish a PAN card.

If the employee is not liable to pay taxes even after the additional withdrawal amount, they can give Form 15G/15H along with their PAN number, and TDS won’t be charged. However, if an employee falls in the tax bracket, they can’t give Form 15G/15H. Since PAN is necessary, 10% TDS will be charged.

If an employee doesn’t provide their PAN number to the EPFO and withdraws more than Rs. 50,000, a hefty 34% TDS will be deducted.

To withdraw from your PF account, the following documents are necessary:

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