Administrative Officers 2018 in the Civil Service

Ravelleman

LordBasil wrote: »

If people lie on the questionnaire and give answers that they think are what will score higher, rather than what they actually think/feel, will they ever be pulled up/questioned about some of their answers at the later stages?

If not, it just seems unfair that the questionnaire can decide if you make the next stage but the answers given are not checked.

This is the fundamental flaw in all such assessments - people alter their answers according to what they believe to be the desired organisational profile. The tests in general are an opaque, blunt-force instrument used in the initial screening of applicants. They are consistent in that they apply the same bogus assessment criteria to all applicants more or less equally.

For what it's worth, no reference whatsoever was made to my questionnaire at my interview in 2016 and I sincerely doubt that the questionnaire is a factor at interview at all. Rather, the interview is a question of demonstrating competency in the required areas by reference to specific example, either from your working life or from education.

FenFlynn

Finally finished all of them. I messed up with the numerical really badly. Don't know what happened and I just enlarged the full screen, couldn't fix it and really panicked. Had to guess 4 testlets, I guess that would be me pretty much out. Not hoping to go too far with this anyway, I just find this extremely competitive.

Pai Mei

God that Numerical was a nightmare. Time constraints are so harsh I was guessing half of them. Really disappointed. Guess it's just a waiting game now but I won't be holding out too much hope.

engiweirdo

Any idea when we can find out results?

eimaj18

engiweirdo wrote: »

Any idea when we can find out results?

Late November as far as I know - it was on one of the descriptions of the tests.

Orchid

Well, I messed up the numerical also, and this was supposed to be my strong suit! The timed element completely messed me about and my brain just stopped working ... ah well, maybe next year.

John Hutton

Numerical was quite hard. I noticed that upon moving to the next question the countdown started at either 2:55 or 2:56 - not the full three minutes.

This shall be my excuse for failing.

duffman13

Had a bit of a disaster with my laptop but fair play to the IT people, they sorted it sharp. I logged on last night, laptop froze just before I started and locked the test. Emailed IT fhis morning and it was unlocked after 5 mins.

Had to do an update on the laptop which froze a couple of times during numerical then. So I've learned I need a new laptop

Dytalus

Orchid wrote: »

Well, I messed up the numerical also, and this was supposed to be my strong suit! The timed element completely messed me about and my brain just stopped working ... ah well, maybe next year.

This is pretty much how I felt. Numbers and maths is usually my strong suit compared to the verbal tests, but towards the last few testlets I was pretty consistently running out of time. Had to make blind guesses at one or two of them, which I'm sure will do wonders for my result.

Law101

Yes I totally screwed up the numerical too. I have 2:1 in political science and a masters law degree which I just graduated from this year. Safe to say I’m not am eejit - I had to completely guess about 80% of the numerical! There’ll be no civil service career for me anyway, I’ll kiss that option away.

engiweirdo

The numerical is pass only though. What's the pass mark? 40-50%? Might not be as bad as people think.

Dalio

John Hutton wrote: »

Numerical was quite hard. I noticed that upon moving to the next question the countdown started at either 2:55 or 2:56 - not the full three minutes.

This shall be my excuse for failing.

you ought to let PAS know

HydroTendonMan

engiweirdo wrote: »

The numerical is pass only though. What's the pass mark? 40-50%? Might not be as bad as people think.

Is that right? In other CS competitions I've been involved in they were graded. Hopefully this is the case, I feel like I got by but just about!

Chris252

As expected numerical went very badly for me, not my strong suit!! Found verbal okay. Assumed this was a nationwide campaign but from what people have been saying its mainly Dublin?? So not too bothered if I get nowhere!

Dytalus

HydroTendonMan wrote: »

Is that right? In other CS competitions I've been involved in they were graded. Hopefully this is the case, I feel like I got by but just about!

I believe this might be true. I was previously part of an EO competition, and I remember that only the verbal reasoning and job aptitude were taken into account for your place on the panel. You only needed to pass the numerical test.

Hopefully it's the same case here, because I did way worse on it this time around.

Sunny Disposition

It was very hard to be fair, think the earlier questions in both were a bit easier, but the latter ones were very tough. When do you find out if you are through to the next stage?

tgdaly

Sunny Disposition wrote: »

It was very hard to be fair, think the earlier questions in both were a bit easier, but the latter ones were very tough. When do you find out if you are through to the next stage?

They said we should know by the end of November, to be honest I'd be surprised if it took that long, although we all know that PAS work at their own pace. I know nothing will be done next week with the bank holiday, and the week after might be a bit soon too. I'd say somewhere between Friday the 16th to the 23rd might be a good guess

engiweirdo

Anyone else apply for the Local Authority graduate programme and not receive confirmation/acknowledgement of receipt of application?

engiweirdo

Just me so. Ooookay.

November Golf

engiweirdo wrote: »

Anyone else apply for the Local Authority graduate programme and not receive confirmation/acknowledgement of receipt of application?

I didn't even take notice of a local authority campaign. This is news to me.

WAW

engiweirdo wrote: »

Anyone else apply for the Local Authority graduate programme and not receive confirmation/acknowledgement of receipt of application?

Which Local Authority was that? Councils don't recruit centrally. Each council runs its own recruitment.

engiweirdo

WAW wrote: »

Which Local Authority was that? Councils don't recruit centrally. Each council runs its own recruitment.

Hi it was for Waterford Council but the email for applications was graduates@lgma.ie gave the impression it was a centralised org rather than directly to LA.

November Golf

WAW wrote: »

engiweirdo wrote: »

Anyone else apply for the Local Authority graduate programme and not receive confirmation/acknowledgement of receipt of application?

Which Local Authority was that? Councils don't recruit centrally. Each council runs its own recruitment.

They did run a PAS campaign last year for graduates (equivalent to AO) but I didn't hear anything this year.

engiweirdo

Mike Foxtrot wrote: »

I didn't even take notice of a local authority campaign. This is news to me.

Was on gradireland. Someone on here posted little link to it as well I believe. Thought it was in this thread but might have been wrong.

WAW

engiweirdo wrote: »

Hi it was for Waterford Council but the email for applications was graduates@lgma.ie gave the impression it was a centralised org rather than directly to LA.

Ok, never knew they did that! I'd say get on to LGMA. Some of these things can take months.

tgdaly

There was a competition last year for Graduate Opportunities in Local Government. A few weeks ago then they were looking for a few more people to fill positions in some of the counties that didn't get the numbers they wanted the first time around. The competition was on publicjobs.ie but there wasn't any add for the extra positions as far as I'm aware, except on the LGMA.

The only reason I was aware of it was because of an email somebody got in work

belgowho

Will next stage of this include an e-tray aside from repeat competency tests?

Thanks!

HydroTendonMan

belgowho wrote: »

Will next stage of this include an e-tray aside from repeat competency tests?

Thanks!

There is an e-tray and a presentation as well as the interview on the competencies for AO.

The_Conductor

belgowho wrote: »

Will next stage of this include an e-tray aside from repeat competency tests?

Thanks!

Very possibly.
In recent competitions PAS have brought forward the e-tray- to get it done at an earlier stage in the competition. Historically it was done on the same day as the interview itself- however, you had to pass both the e-tray and the interview independently of one another. A staggering number of people who passed the interview with flying colours were bombing out on the e-tray. It simplifies the situation for the interview boards- if they are not investing time, effort and resources- interviewing candidates- who are not going to be successful in a different part of the recruitment process.

ScreenTest310

Does anyone know exactly what the presentation entails?