NEW 2020 Assistant Principal Officer Competition

TaurenDruid

TaurenDruid wrote: »

And yet I've come across a fair few AOs from various departments, who've been promoted to AP, and a fair few HEOs with management experience told they didn't have management experience. AOs seem to do disproportionately well in some departments' internal competitions, at the expense of HEOs.

Swings and roundabouts.

I think every Civil Servant knows internal competitions seem to be law into their own. I can only speak from my own perspective but those successful in my Department have been older applicants and the majority of them HEO's. The AO's that were successful weren't recent entrants either they had either prior experience outside the Civil Service or were in other Departments before they got promoted to an AO. In any event, PAS is a different beast which every Civil Servant has apply to for the Open/Interdepartmental Competitions. My point was if the facts are there to be seen they speak for themselves.

Mervyn Skidmore

Just back from my internal AP interview. Found it awful, the worst of 4 AP interviews I've done. The board had been chopped and changed a couple of times I the last few days and I felt the interview had no structure at all. Didn't ask about my experience or education, just said "we read your form" and started straight into questioning.

One board member scoffed twice at something I said and rolled her eyes another time. I don't care if she disagreed with me but I found that very unprofessional. Add to this the fact that it was a video interview with slight delay, glitches, and it was near impossible to build up any rapport. Anyway, an interview to forget.

TheStuka

Feel for you. Sounds about right, there really should be how to give an interview training on One Learning. Nothing worse than just wanting to elaborate on your experience and being shot down. Happened to me in an inter d comp for HEO , wasn't an interview just a dressing down. Irony is the very next year came nearly top of the pack and got it. And then got another HEO position the next year in a different department specialist comp. Its vert very subjective sometimes. They should invest in giving people a fair shot - Active listening skills , diplomacy and all that.

Mervyn Skidmore wrote: »

Just back from my internal AP interview. Found it awful, the worst of 4 AP interviews I've done. The board had been chopped and changed a couple of times I the last few days and I felt the interview had no structure at all. Didn't ask about my experience or education, just said "we read your form" and started straight into questioning.

One board member scoffed twice at something I said and rolled her eyes another time. I don't care if she disagreed with me but I found that very unprofessional. Add to this the fact that it was a video interview with slight delay, glitches, and it was near impossible to build up any rapport. Anyway, an interview to forget.

TaurenDruid

TheStuka wrote: »

Feel for you. Sounds about right, there really should be how to give an interview training on One Learning. Nothing worse than just wanting to elaborate on your experience and being shot down. Happened to me in an inter d comp for HEO , wasn't an interview just a dressing down. Irony is the very next year came nearly top of the pack and got it. And then got another HEO position the next year in a different department specialist comp. Its vert very subjective sometimes. They should invest in giving people a fair shot - Active listening skills , diplomacy and all that.

This. I've had interviews where the panel were clearly interested and engaged, had trained and/or obviously sat on panels before, and who asked relevant questions with follow ups. (Ironically passed an interview like that then failed the e-tray!) And I've had one where the feedback was the only massive "did not demonstrate all the required competencies", to which my reaction was "well, two of you might be able to say that, but the third was literally falling asleep for a good third of the interview!" Passed the e-tray that time, though...

I've also had a 2-person board for a specialist panel where one asked me questions in the usual way for a competency-based interview, while the other gave me rapid-fire questions with no time at all to answer. That's fine - I guess - if you've been told it's not a competency based interview, but we were told it was...

No consistency, no feedback, no fairness.

Addle

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I think every Civil Servant knows internal competitions seem to be law into their own. I can only speak from my own perspective but those successful in my Department have been older applicants and the majority of them HEO's. The AO's that were successful weren't recent entrants either they had either prior experience outside the Civil Service or were in other Departments before they got promoted to an AO. In any event, PAS is a different beast which every Civil Servant has apply to for the Open/Interdepartmental Competitions. My point was if the facts are there to be seen they speak for themselves.

Your experience doesn’t have to be work related.

Addle

Addle wrote: »

Your experience doesn’t have to be work related.

Staff management was a prerequisite...

Addle

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Staff management was a prerequisite...

Staff or people?

Mervyn Skidmore

TheStuka wrote: »

Feel for you. Sounds about right, there really should be how to give an interview training on One Learning. Nothing worse than just wanting to elaborate on your experience and being shot down. Happened to me in an inter d comp for HEO , wasn't an interview just a dressing down. Irony is the very next year came nearly top of the pack and got it. And then got another HEO position the next year in a different department specialist comp. Its vert very subjective sometimes. They should invest in giving people a fair shot - Active listening skills , diplomacy and all that.

It was a bit weird alright, all of the board were in different rooms and I believe she thought I wasn't able to see her when she was scoffing, laughing, and rolling her eyes, as she wasn't asking some of the questions. It's a pity it wasn't recorded actually, only a note taker was present. Anyway, I've interviewed CO to EO competition before and I wouldn't dream of reacting like that no matter what was said.

Edit; oh, and her phone started ringing at one point.

Addle

Addle wrote: »

Staff or people?

Staff unfortunately.

Ravelleman

Monkey5 wrote: »

I honestly think I've had enough of this and will have to start planning my exit from the civil service. It is not just sour grapes from being unsuccessful on this occasion but the fact that it's not going to be any different next time.

I ended up in a Civil Service backwater as an AO and found the atmosphere utterly stultifying. After facing similar frustrations in competitions, I decided to make a bit of a sideways move from AO to something similar to HEO in a completely different type of organisation in the public service more broadly. The role came up via direct recruitment, rather than through a general competition, and matched a specific skill-set and type of experience I have. I would recommend keeping your eyes open for opportunities like this. The HEO salary scale is very reasonable even if your target is c. 70k as an AP.

A few general observations on the AO role:

I am not sure if the frequent comparison to HEO is useful. Rather, I think that there are some problems in the general AO experience.

Being an AO is framed as a graduate role (and literally is in that candidates must have a level-eight degree) and in many people's minds this implies that it should lead to progression at some tangible end point. However, the AO role is very much not in the style of the UK Civil Service Fast Stream programme which leads to an appointment at a higher level upon completion. The number of AOs in the Irish Civil Service has increased significantly over the last seven or eight years and cynics rightly say that this has been a deliberate effort to access cheap labour. Not only has this been greatly successful, there is no incentive to change anything as the AO recruitment process is always oversubscribed.

While AOs may indeed end up in policy-oriented departments, many will be very junior in those teams and end up doing a lot of water carrying. The work can be tedious and, in my view, lead to a credibility issue for AOs if they don't have diverse work experience. At that level, of course, everyone is managing something but I felt that very little depended on the management done by AOs where I was, whereas HEOs often had a lot of operational responsibility. Managing staff and business operations is onerous and boring, but if you have limited experience then this definitely trumps writing a report on iron ore policy or whatever they have you doing.

For me, it's a Peter Pan role: AOs are full of promise but may never grow up.

Cheeseplant

poundhound wrote: »

Remote e-tray exercise next.

Did you get notification of this?

Cheeseplant

Mervyn Skidmore wrote: »

It was a bit weird alright, all of the board were in different rooms and I believe she thought I wasn't able to see her when she was scoffing, laughing, and rolling her eyes, as she wasn't asking some of the questions. It's a pity it wasn't recorded actually, only a note taker was present. Anyway, I've interviewed CO to EO competition before and I wouldn't dream of reacting like that no matter what was said.

Edit; oh, and her phone started ringing at one point.

Honestly this is terrible. You should put in a complaint about this. How could you be expected to perform at your best with this sh1t?

For saying that, any money says this is the time you get on the panel

poundhound

Cheeseplant wrote: »

Did you get notification of this?

Yes. I was notified that further details on the next stage of the process, an online simulation exercise in the form of an etray, will issue in due course.

Cheeseplant

poundhound wrote: »

Yes. I was notified that further details on the next stage of the process, an online simulation exercise in the form of an etray, will issue in due course.

oohh yuck. I was seriously hoping that we would escape that! I say 'we' but I will be in batch 2 I hope.

lucat

Ravelleman wrote: »

I ended up in a Civil Service backwater as an AO and found the atmosphere utterly stultifying. After facing similar frustrations in competitions, I decided to make a bit of a sideways move from AO to something similar to HEO in a completely different type of organisation in the public service more broadly. The role came up via direct recruitment, rather than through a general competition, and matched a specific skill-set and type of experience I have. I would recommend keeping your eyes open for opportunities like this. The HEO salary scale is very reasonable even if your target is c. 70k as an AP.

A few general observations on the AO role:

I am not sure if the frequent comparison to HEO is useful. Rather, I think that there are some problems in the general AO experience.

Being an AO is framed as a graduate role (and literally is in that candidates must have a level-eight degree) and in many people's minds this implies that it should lead to progression at some tangible end point. However, the AO role is very much not in the style of the UK Civil Service Fast Stream programme which leads to an appointment at a higher level upon completion. The number of AOs in the Irish Civil Service has increased significantly over the last seven or eight years and cynics rightly say that this has been a deliberate effort to access cheap labour. Not only has this been greatly successful, there is no incentive to change anything as the AO recruitment process is always oversubscribed.

While AOs may indeed end up in policy-oriented departments, many will be very junior in those teams and end up doing a lot of water carrying. The work can be tedious and, in my view, lead to a credibility issue for AOs if they don't have diverse work experience. At that level, of course, everyone is managing something but I felt that very little depended on the management done by AOs where I was, whereas HEOs often had a lot of operational responsibility. Managing staff and business operations is onerous and boring, but if you have limited experience then this definitely trumps writing a report on iron ore policy or whatever they have you doing.

For me, it's a Peter Pan role: AOs are full of promise but may never grow up.

Totally agree with this observation re. the AO role. I think it seems to be hard for internal HR to see you in a higher grade for some reason, unless you're older and they feel that you've done your time/you're owed a promotion because of xyz reason.

eimscc

poundhound wrote: »

Yes. I was notified that further details on the next stage of the process, an online simulation exercise in the form of an etray, will issue in due course.

I got the same. Wonder will there be another stage after that.

supersaint3

I'd say there's a 3 person Board interview after e tray surely ? Does anyone know if the score from the 3x3min video matters now? Is it added to the e tray for a new order of merit ? Best of luck all

CBCB

supersaint3 wrote: »

I'd say there's a 3 person Board interview after e tray surely ? Does anyone know if the score from the 3x3min video matters now? Is it added to the e tray for a new order of merit ? Best of luck all

I wouldn't think so. I would imagine it just means you are through to the next stage like a normal shortlisting process and all who passed get through to etray. The score on etray may have a bearing on when you are called to interview but the numbers that were called to online interview were small so you would imagine that they will be able to interview all who pass the online interview and etray in the one go.

poundhound

Remote e-tray exercise to be completed between Sept 1st and 4th.
Familiarisation material just received.
This is moving along quite quickly.

red1329

There doesn't seem to be details of a sample exercise to take before the real one for the purposes of practice. Only a note to say you must go through the tutorial on the day.

Brera

poundhound wrote: »

Remote e-tray exercise to be completed between Sept 1st and 4th.
Familiarisation material just received.
This is moving along quite quickly.

It seems to be moving along quite quickly. Especially by PAS standards 😆

I’m guessing then the interviews will be the at end of September or early October.

Hopefully then the second batch will be called around mid October 🀞

CBCB

poundhound wrote: »

Remote e-tray exercise to be completed between Sept 1st and 4th.
Familiarisation material just received.
This is moving along quite quickly.

wow that's quite a narrow time frame to complete it

Sarahlaois

Have all candidates called to etray selected Dublin as a location? Just wondering if batch 2 will be all other non-Dublin candidates who met the original cut off for OOM? I was in top 15 and I've heard nothing yet ☹

Gadgetman99

Only candidates who selected dublin and scored 126 went to stage 2. Not sure when they will call regional candidates.

Sarahlaois

Gadgetman99 wrote: »

Only candidates who selected dublin and scored 126 went to stage 2. Not sure when they will call regional candidates.

Thank you Gadgetman ..... just wanted to ensure I didn't miss anything ðŸ‘

berocca2016

How many more stages will there be after the etray ?

HannahR31

berocca2016 wrote: »

How many more stages will there be after the etray ?

Based on last time I'd imagine just an interview! There wasn't a presentation last time - but there was for the InterD HEO.

InsideEdge

Is there anyone with any experience of attempting an e-tray exercise? Any tips would be very welcome!

HannahR31

InsideEdge wrote: »

Is there anyone with any experience of attempting an e-tray exercise? Any tips would be very welcome!

I've done a few of them and still don't have any good advice tbh!
The only thing I can think of is watch the clock. If I remember right, you tend to start off thinking you have loads of time so start with 'slow and steady' but no matter what you end up down to the wire so try to be quick about it from the start.

And make sure you hit 'finish/submit' or whatever rather than just close it. Every time I hear people getting on to PAS because they're not sure if their data was lost or not because they didn't hit submit.

Divisadero

There are examples online but in my experience unlike general aptitude tests (e.g. numerical reasoning) they are not something you can really prepare for. Each one is different. It's just a matter of focus and keeping an eye on the clock. Try to complete as much of the main tasks as you can and submit everything you have done before time runs out. Don't do one task perfectly and ignore the other. Make a decent stab at both.

The usual format in the past has been two main tasks e.g. compiling information and drafting a fairly complex letter and organising a schedule for a conference. During the exercise some changes will be requested and you will have to adapt. Also you will get an occasional message on other relatively minor unrelated matters.

As I said try to keep a cool head and get as much of the main tasks completed as you can. Like all tests the e-tray suits some and not others. But pay attention to what you are asked and focus and you should be fine.