Principal Officer competition 2022

Bowiegal

I think a few people have come off the Dublin panel for regional posts. Great to see it moving. My clearance took approx 2.5 weeks.

DaDoRonRonRon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120133047#Comment_120133047

Yes, that's for Dublin. Hopefully they'll keep this increased pace up!

marvelkhaleesi

Congrats @DaDoRonRonRon Hope you’re out of clearance by now.

Does anyone know if the panel has moved since?

baxza

I'm in early 50s and have passed through clearance process now. Got notification about clearance nearly 2 weeks ago.

Hibearnian

Also early 50s and got my email re clearance this morning.

marvelkhaleesi

Congrats @baxza and @Hibearnian

Great to see the panel moving at a decent pace

tea and coffee

What's the total panel? 75 or so?

At this rate next set of interviews by early autumn.... or before?!

marvelkhaleesi

I think a colleague mentioned someone in the 80s. Could be wrong about that. If this pace keeps up, I’d be hopeful of a batch 2 being called.

purple hands

Sorry if off topic, but how often do these principal officer competitions happen? (annually?) And how would one keep an eye out for them?

marvelkhaleesi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120256121#Comment_120256121

About every 2 years. This competition won’t expire until March 2024. Your best bet would be to set up an account on publicjobs.ie and set up an alert. There might be more specialist equivalent roles that crop up before than that you’d like

night_owl_2022

81 are on the order of merit from Batch 1… if they are clearing candidates in the early 50s there must be fewer than 30 candidates left on the original Order of Merit.

Wonder when they will call Batch 2 for assessment?

BlitheSpirit

I'm in the late 50s and have been contacted about clearance.

marvelkhaleesi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120271268#Comment_120271268

Congratulations!

night_owl_2022

For those who have already passed clearance, what did they ask for in terms of reference from past employers? Written reference or just phone number to call them up?

softskills

Great so see this panel moving so will. For those of us in the nose bleeds (60s) This point seemed so far away at the start. Congrats to everyone who has been appointed so far. I hope you are enjoying the new roles.

softskills

Mid-60s contacted for clearance :-)

marvelkhaleesi

Congratulations! Surely PAS will have to call batch 2 soon? They’ve picked up the pace significantly

martian1980

Fantastic - well done. Please keep us posted on when you get offered a post.

BlitheSpirit

Congrats @softskills .

My clearance went through very quickly - existing civil servant- and now assigned with start date to be confirmed.

@night_owl_2022 Was asked to confirm current employer details and PAS contacted them directly by email.

dotski_w_

Any word from those in the 70s? If there was 81 in the first batch and they had 60-odd reached by February, that's nearly 10 per month (or am I misunderstanding anything there?).

Also am I right in understanding that 81 is from the top 243 in round 1, so about a third were still available and got through? It seems a bit low, but I guess between people already promoted internally, and others no longer available/interested, perhaps 50% get through the 2nd round who are still there?

I'm in the early 600s from round one so hoping against hope there's another 2 batches before the panel expires.

marvelkhaleesi

not quite 81/243. Stage 2 is shortlisting based on forms. Don’t know how many made it through that to interview. Progress averages out to what you’ve said but it was v slow to December and then there was a surge.

fingers crossed you get called for interview. There’s about a year to go. The last comp called at least 3, if not 4, batches

hardybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120328568#Comment_120328568

I remember hearing about 5 years ago that something like 8 or 9 in every 10 POs were due to retire in the coming decade. Then obviously POs are going to get promoted to A/Sec, and the Civil Service numbers have also been going up incrementally each year in line with an expanding remit and population growth.

There's about 1,500 POs in the Civil Service. If you consider the above it's likely that the system will probably need around 150 new POs a year every year for the next few years at least.

So yeah, I'd say they'll probably need to do another couple of batches before running another competition in order to keep up with demand. PAS are absolutely flat out trying to feed the machine it seems.

Palofmine

It’s at the early 70s now

goofy141

What are the chances of them calling batch 2 - I am in the early 300's from round 1?

marvelkhaleesi

With about 10 left and a year to go, I’d be hopeful you’ll get called @Goofy

Winterspring

Surely they hv to call the next batch soon. I wonder will they notify the next batch in advance of shortlisting or just give them the shortlisting results as the next communication as u would imagine time is tight to get the next panel up and running b4 they run out of candidates on the first panel

dotski_w_

In terms of time being tight, they might not be under huge external pressure to always have some ready to go, as departments usually have an internal competition/panel and will often be happy or even prefer to fill from that (33% are supposed to come from that but most have a big enough debt to the open panel).

marvelkhaleesi

There are internal panels but a few Departments are struggling to get internal applicants for those. I wouldn’t give up hope of another batch being called in the next while.

dotski_w_

I didn't think there's any shortage for applicants for internal competitions? Certainly isn't in mine, they had to shortlist applicants as there's too many to interview.

What departments did you hear were having problems getting applicants, I might look for a lateral transfer?

marvelkhaleesi

Union said there are a few. Might get details at ADC.