Third Secretary & Development Specialist Campaign 2020

belgowho

If there is a big set of retirements in near future, there may be a First Sec recruitment coming up. Last one was 2018 if I remember correctly. If that is case, there would be room for at least a few dozen TSs. Completely speculating though.

Aleece2020

belgowho wrote: »

If there is a big set of retirements in near future, there may be a First Sec recruitment coming up. Last one was 2018 if I remember correctly. If that is case, there would be room for at least a few dozen TSs. Completely speculating though.

I have also been told that there's a big wave of retirements coming this year and next. In addition it's possible that recruitment should be on the rise due to fears of a recruitment embargo coming in one or two years in the budget post-COVID.

Benarros

About the précis writing exercise, I guess people already asked here but I haven’t seen any answers.
Has anyone knows how it works? I guess we will have to type instead of handwriting it. Where do you find good material to buy and practice that, please?

Thank you in advance.

18SpookyBooks

HairyCabbage wrote: »

Not sure if this has been asked before but I noticed the following text in the Information Booklet:

"Entry will be at the minimum of the scale and the rate of remuneration will not be subject to negotiation and may be adjusted from time to time in line with Government pay policy."

I am an existing Civil Servant currently on point three of the AO payscale. Does anyone know if this means that I will revert to point one? was anyone here a similar position previously? I don't see the same line in the AO Information Booklet so it's worrying!

Once you have absolutely NO break in service - ie finish AO job on Friday and start in 3rd Sec job Monday, you'll keep your scale and increment date (I did this).

Jambori

Hey, just preparing for the video interview for AO which is also Sonru, can anyone remember by any chance if there was a small pause of a minute or so in between each of the questions in the real interview? Thanks in advance!

augustgetaway

Jambori wrote: »

Hey, just preparing for the video interview for AO which is also Sonru, can anyone remember by any chance if there was a small pause of a minute or so in between each of the questions in the real interview? Thanks in advance!

Hey! There was and there wasn’t, basically you answer one question and once you hit stop or run out of time, the minute timer would start automatically for the next question. You can do as many practice tests as you need on Sonru so I’d definitely recommend that. Best of luck

JDWW

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/diplomats-paid-165m-in-hardship-allowances-in-two-years-39760704.html

belgowho

Did the TS or DSO streams ever give an indication on when they plan to have the interviews? I thought I remember seeing late November but not sure.

PeachL00pies

JDWW wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/diplomats-paid-165m-in-hardship-allowances-in-two-years-39760704.html

This article makes it seem as though the allowances are extortionate - you have to remember that people on these postings often don't have access to some items that we considered 'everyday' goods, and if they do have access, it often costs them much more than they'd pay here.

augustgetaway

belgowho wrote: »

Did the TS or DSO streams ever give an indication on when they plan to have the interviews? I thought I remember seeing late November but not sure.

Late November for an assessment centre via Zoom, according to the Public Jobs website. Not too sure if that’s an interview, tests that are supervised or a presentation to be honest, but I’m sure we’ll find out either this week or early next week!

FenFlynn

augustgetaway wrote: »

Late November for an assessment centre via Zoom, according to the Public Jobs website. Not too sure if that’s an interview, tests that are supervised or a presentation to be honest, but I’m sure we’ll find out either this week or early next week!

I thought the next stage is precise exercise.

augustgetaway

FenFlynn wrote: »

I thought the next stage is precise exercise.

I’m honestly not too sure, all it says on the website is:
“Stage 3 - Invitation to Assessment Centre (Zoom) and completion (Late November)”, this is my first time going for a public job so it very may well be precise exercise?

Edit; you’re right. Just saw it on the booklet there, must’ve missed that. It’s a precis exercise done online so not exactly sure how Zoom comes into it.

PeachL00pies

FenFlynn wrote: »

I thought the next stage is precise exercise.

Was that written anywhere? I couldn't find any information relating to this in the documents (but may have missed it).

For the recent Senior Executive Office - Local Authority Competition it went from recorded interviews straight to panel interviews. There were no other exercises.

PeachL00pies

FenFlynn wrote: »

I thought the next stage is precise exercise.

Apologies - just seen it there. For Parliamentary Reporter this year they used an online exercise tool. It relied on a Zoom connection.

belgowho

Next stage is Precis as per the Third Sec/DSO info booklet. This is followed by Online interview.

They do state that they can add stages like group exercise etc and would let us know.

FenFlynn

PeachL00pies wrote: »

Was that written anywhere? I couldn't find any information relating to this in the documents (but may have missed it).

For the recent Senior Executive Office - Local Authority Competition it went from recorded interviews straight to panel interviews. There were no other exercises.

Local authorities are always different, apart from CO, all the rest of the competitions are primarily shorting listing based on application form then straight to interview. It's stated in the information booklet for TS.

Paladin_

completedit wrote: »

I applied for the Security Council job and got a rejection e-mail last week.

Hard luck, seems like it was really competitive and a lot of current/former advisers applied. I just got an offer this week, super lucky because I'm high enough in the OOM that I've little to no chance of getting interviewed for TS.

Jambori

augustgetaway wrote: »

Hey! There was and there wasn’t, basically you answer one question and once you hit stop or run out of time, the minute timer would start automatically for the next question. You can do as many practice tests as you need on Sonru so I’d definitely recommend that. Best of luck

That's great, thank you so much for your reply, fingers crossed it goes ok!

ddpas

Has anyone got the information booklet for Third sec/DSO and could send it in? Forgot to save it and it's not online anymore as far as I can see!

FenFlynn

Not sure if you could see that.

ddpas

That works yeah thanks a million

PurpleRainx

Anyone else surprised stage 2 results weren’t out yesterday? Starting to think they won’t give us much time to prepare for the precis exercise. I hope the zoom invite is over the weekend as it will be hard for us who work to get time off at such short notice...

chrishic

Just a heads up, got an email from the DSO role there. So if it's like last round, the Third Secretary emails will follow very soon.

PurpleRainx

Very disappointed with my DSO stage 2 results. They were marked out of 100 and you had to reach 40 to qualify. I got only 37 in 2 qs and 40 in the other meaning I will not progress...

Strangely I met the qualifying standard of the third secretary competition though? Can’t see my results but can see my OOM. Wonder to what OOM they’ll call to stage 3?

FenFlynn

PurpleRainx wrote: »

Very disappointed with my DSO stage 2 results. They were marked out of 100 and you had to reach 40 to qualify. I got only 37 in 2 qs and 40 in the other meaning I will not progress...

Strangely I got through to stage 3 of the third secretary competition though? Can’t see my results

Congratulations for the Third Sec, I'm through as well but OOM in the 100s, so I'm not holding my breath on this one. I didn't get any markings for that either, just saying you are through and an OOM.

blithe

I'm through to the 3rd stage as well, OOM in early 100s.

Now on to prep for the next stage...

spritefeedback

It is interesting that they do not provide a breakdown of the marks if you passed the second round. I would have thought it would have been easier to provide everyone with the same information. It might also help understand if you have stronger/weaker points that could be useful if you manage to get to the final interview.

chrishic

Interesting to see what these precis exercises will be.

Do I remember reading that if you get through to this stage, an interview is guaranteed after the precis. Getting nervous in how much time we will have to do the prep for possibly 2 precis and 2 interviews on top of work and life etc......

blithe

spritefeedback wrote: »

It is interesting that they do not provide a breakdown of the marks if you passed the second round. I would have thought it would have been easier to provide everyone with the same information. It might also help understand if you have stronger/weaker points that could be useful if you manage to get to the final interview.

Yes, I was kind of surprised that we didn't get that information. You're right, it would have helped for prep for the final interview...

ErikaYa

I'm also through to the third stage, but early 100s for OOM so dunno if thats good or bad. Time to start preparing for precis regardless I suppose