Civil Service _ Administrative Officer 2020 - Questions about OOM, Panels and Clearance

ComeBackArsene

Hi all!

Hope you're well. I've been googling answers to my questions but unfortunately none have arisen, and since most of the threads I read were on here hopefully this is the place to find what I'm looking for! I applied for the position of AO, General Stream last October but since I didn't do phenomenally in the tests (around 400 I believe) I didn't think I'd hear back. In a wild series events over the past month, I've been interviewed and placed on a panel.

I have two main questions; what is a good position on the OOM and how long will it take to be offered a role? I realise this is very much a how long is a piece of string question, but am I talking two weeks or six months, if at all? I think I did relatively well in the interview and I'm just outside the top 10 on the Order Of Merit, is that a good position? In terms of the interview scores that they send you, what is classed as good? Would mid sixties be decent?

I also have a question about the clearance process. I'm relatively non-controversial on social media and I've done a scrub of embarrassing photos or sharing non stop facebook posts for free club entries, but how deep do they go? I've locked all my socials just in case and there's nothing particularly damning there (I hope), but I have a few tweets where I've criticised the government over issues and funding etc. Is putting my twitter on private enough to get through the clearance?

I realise there's a lot of questions there and I hope they haven't been asked here before, I had a scan through to see if they had and couldn't find any. Thank you so much in advance for any advice you may have, and if you need any more info just let me know!

Ravelleman

Mid-sixties is quite good but all that matters is passing and getting your OOM place. As a general, though not foolproof, rule of thumb, if you are interviewed and placed, you can expect to be appointed at some point (there have been some competitions where this did not hold true in the past, such as the PO competition in c. 2016).

PAS does not check your social media, nor does it matter if you have expressed opinions in public or in private in the past. Clearance refers to the checking of references, academic qualification, medical issues if applicable, Garda vetting, etc. Garda vetting involves the disclosure of past convictions and pending prosecutions. If you will be working in An Garda Síochána or another sensitive area of the Civil Service, you will be subject to more elaborate security clearance, which involves Garda vetting and local checks.

ComeBackArsene

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850443#Comment_117850443

Great stuff, thank you so much! Glad that clearance is mainly official, hopefully I'll get the call this side of Christmas at least!