2017 Local authority SEO competition

TaurenDruid

PAS have an advert up for a new Senior Executive Officer competition for local authorities:

https://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/campaignAdvert/53440.htm

Anyone got any advice on the application or competition process?

Specifically, while PAS have loads of downloads about Civil Service competencies, there's nothing I can find on local authority competencies on their site and the information booklet has just a page.

Civil Service competencies don't map directly across even though this seems to be the local authority equivalent of an APO.

Thanks in advance!

Nerd Queen

Application submitted here. Best of luck!

TaurenDruid

Mine just gone in, too. Best of luck to you, too!

griffin100

I applied last time around and hit the required scores in the online tests to have my application reviewed. However I wasn't shortlisted for interview. The mail I received back said that my application was reviewed under the following criteria:

- Strategic Management and Change ? A broad track record displaying the ability to think and act strategically and in the delivery of change;

- Delivering Results ? Evidence of delivering challenging results in an efficient and cost effective manner across a range of areas. Evidence of decisive action with multiple stakeholders.

- Performance through People ? Proven ability to motivate others individually and in teams to deliver high quality work and customer focused outcomes. Evidence of managing, supervising and leading teams of 3+.

- Personal Effectiveness - Evidence of appropriate and positive self confidence. Operates effectively in an environment with significant complexity and pace. Evidence of effective communication, to include presentations and reports.

- Experience: 5 years experience at an appropriate senior level.

The standard must be high as this role was a step down for me and I would have thought I hit all of these criteria very well.....but then I would wouldn't I

Hope that's of help to someone.

TaurenDruid

I'd be interested in seeing how many made it through from local authorities vs civil service vs private sector all right.

Tabnabs

Dates for Stage 1 online assessments have been released

Test Window Open: 13.00 hrs 15 June Test Window Close: 13:00 hrs Thursday 22 June
Test Window Open: 08.00 hrs 4 July Test Window Close: 20.00 hrs 5 July

TaurenDruid

So it looks like the tests are different to the APO competition. A different company, too? The job simulation one is weird. What do you do if you think all the options are crap (as was the case with some of the options in the APO tests, but at least you could mark them all as poor options/least likely to choose this action).

TaurenDruid

New message with login details for the online tests and announcing the additional dates that they're available for:

Test Window Open: 13.00 hrs 15 June Test Window Close: 13:00 hrs Thursday 22 June
Test Window Open: 08.00 hrs 4 July Test Window Close: 20.00 hrs 5 July

And they're not available on Monday evening, 19th June.

That's my Sunday afternoon sorted, I guess...

Nerd Queen

Anybody tried the tests yet?

Whenever wherever

Just me or is there only one example for the management scenario questions?

TaurenDruid

Yup, just the one example, and no feedback to say "This would be the preferred answer and should attract most filled-in dots because... and this one would be the second preferred answer... etc."

So yeah, I can see foresee lots of frustration with that particular test...

prettyboy81

Couple more days of training the brain with practise tests before I do this test.

Nerd Queen

Found the timing on the tests tricky! Not the actual questions just the timing

TaurenDruid

How so? Not enough time per question, or overall? About to kick it off myself in 15 or 20 minutes :-/

Nerd Queen

TaurenDruid wrote: »

How so? Not enough time per question, or overall? About to kick it off myself in 15 or 20 minutes :-/

I didn't think there was enough time per question at all! Got about 40 of the verbal done and i think 30 on the numerical! Management one is strange too! Just very tight timewise on the first 2

TaurenDruid

From memory of the APO competition, I got through the verbal ok but the maths I had to just guess the last few. This is is a different company doing the tests, though, I think, so they could be tougher. How long do they all take?

TaurenDruid

So 12 minutes each allowed for the Verbal and Numerical. Yeah, I see what you mean about tight for time! As mentioned, in the AP, I finished all of the verbal reasoning with some time to spare and had to guess a couple of the numerical; I didn't get either anywhere near finished this time around. Very ambiguous wording on some of them!

Nerd Queen

TaurenDruid wrote: »

So 12 minutes each allowed for the Verbal and Numerical. Yeah, I see what you mean about tight for time! As mentioned, in the AP, I finished all of the verbal reasoning with some time to spare and had to guess a couple of the numerical; I didn't get either anywhere near finished this time around. Very ambiguous wording on some of them!

I was the same finished the verbal on the AP but missed a few on the numerical. The time wasted constantly clicking between tabs was an annoying. That's where the ambiguity of the wording as you said annoyed me cos a couple of the tabs had to be checked for the answer.

To get them all in verbal you had to answer every question in 14.7 seconds. In numerical 19.5 seconds per question. Thats quite tight no matter how good you are when you have to click between tabs.

Flew through the management scenario questions. What did you think of those?

TaurenDruid

A mixture of "All of these options are equally valid (or equally ****e!), how am I supposed to choose?!", where I ended up with a 2-2-2 distribtion or maybe 3-2-1; and "Well, that's obvious!" where I'd 6 dots in the one answer. Then would second-guess myself and think about putting 1 dot into another answer, just in case... I'd say I did reasonably ok in it, fingers crossed, but I don't think I did well enough in the other two.

The huge problem with this type of test is you don't know what they're looking for! The sample question, for example - in the real world, if you've a good staff member and no guarantee of getting an equally good replacement (if any!), would you ever try to get them moved somewhere else, pre-emptively, if they haven't actually looked for a move? Not a snowball's chance in hell! But what's the "right" answer? It could be "The organisation is more important, get them transferred to the other section so they'll fulfill a greater potential"; or it could equally be "This person is entirely competent, keep them in my section so we achieve our objectives." Presumably the "right" weighting has been picked by a psychologist employed by a German multinational who last week was designing a test to select store managers for Lidl...

What's interesting is if you give the sample question to different actual managers at SEO level and ask them to do it, then compare their answers...

Nerd Queen

TaurenDruid wrote: »

A mixture of "All of these options are equally valid (or equally ****e!), how am I supposed to choose?!", where I ended up with a 2-2-2 distribtion or maybe 3-2-1; and "Well, that's obvious!" where I'd 6 dots in the one answer. Then would second-guess myself and think about putting 1 dot into another answer, just in case... I'd say I did reasonably ok in it, fingers crossed, but I don't think I did well enough in the other two.

The huge problem with this type of test is you don't know what they're looking for! The sample question, for example - in the real world, if you've a good staff member and no guarantee of getting an equally good replacement (if any!), would you ever try to get them moved somewhere else, pre-emptively, if they haven't actually looked for a move? Not a snowball's chance in hell! But what's the "right" answer? It could be "The organisation is more important, get them transferred to the other section so they'll fulfill a greater potential"; or it could equally be "This person is entirely competent, keep them in my section so we achieve our objectives." Presumably the "right" weighting has been picked by a psychologist employed by a German multinational who last week was designing a test to select store managers for Lidl...

What's interesting is if you give the sample question to different actual managers at SEO level and ask them to do it, then compare their answers...

Absolutely like there is no clear cut right or wrong answer only what you deem right/ wrong or possibly an option! Ah sure we'll see whats next! Best of luck to everyone!

Hopefully results will be out quick enough after the july deadline......

Nerd Queen

I have no patience waiting for these results haha

TaurenDruid

We've a while to wait yet - they won't be released until after the last date for doing the tests, which is next Wednesday. That said, they're computerised, so no reason we won't get them by the end of next week. I just have to hope answering 25-ish verbal questions was enough, and that I got most of them right!

fickletosser

Just completed the tests......very tough time wise. Hopefully wont be waiting long on the results.

prettyboy81

Hopefully not a long wait once the window closes this evening.

Tabnabs

Felt more like I was applying for a job with Evergreen Ltd. :pac:

Done, but I hated the tab system, especially for the verbal reasoning.

Decinho

I must say the verbal test was a nightmare, do you read the 6 tabs first or read as you need to answer the question....... the short time limit was so off putting. I found the math a bit better but still only got to about 25-30 questions done.

I was thinking the results would be out soon but then just remembered that there were tests on yesterday.

fickletosser

The Suspense is killing me!!!!

Decinho

Did anyone apply for this 2 year ago?

It was pretty controversial..........

TaurenDruid

How so?

Nerd Queen

Decinho wrote: »

Did anyone apply for this 2 year ago?

It was pretty controversial..........

Oh really in what way? Also did anyone else think the results were out only to find it was a PAS survey?

Decinho

Well I scored fairly highly as did someone else I know, so we were waiting for our interviews after being congratulated. There was a huge delay and it turned out what happened was a lot of internal applicants in the local authority scored badly in the test, they complained to their union and the union fought on their behalf to have every internal applicant reinstated. This is what I happened. Despite failing the tests they got reinstated and we got pushed out. Their experience was deemed better than ours as they worked in the local authority so despite scoring much better than some, they were called for interview over us.