Third Secretary Campaign 2022

Protoman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119626211#Comment_119626211

There was definately one the last recruitment campaign (late 2020)

HadjiMurat

All finished! Felt the actual tests were more manageable than the ones I had been practicing. No issues with time or format, which seem to have been problems in the past.

I did the VR on Tuesday, then the SAQ yesterday and finally the NR this morning.

VR - Can't really remember much of it at this stage 🤣 Liked that the passages were short, but didn't like that there was no standout text to catch your attention like dates, place names, numbers etc. The format with the six questions on one page was nice. I had time to go back over two passages I was unsure of. Have no idea what my score is going to be though, so little to distinguish between true/false and cannot say in a lot of questions. Some practice runs I did very well and then others I got loads wrong.

SAQ - I thought this was fine. I answered the SAQ as honestly as possible, rather than trying to tailor my answers to what they are looking for. I'm not a confrontational or impatient person, so I assume my score will be ok 😅 Situational judgement is very similar to VR in that there is little to distinguish between answers. Feel like I will get a lot of 'partially correct' answers in this part.

NR - I left this until last because I felt like it's the one that you can get the highest score in with enough practice. I think I did well, most of my calculations agreed with one of the options. I'm sure there were 1 or 2 trick questions that I didn't pick up on though.

Overall, I think the process was smooth. My main worry beforehand was that I wouldn't be able to answer all questions within the time frame, thankfully I did. Not sure if I agree on it being the best way to trim down candidates, (I do understand the practicality of the process given the number of candidates), I just think it's going to be harsh on a number of people (potentially including myself) who are going to miss out on progressing to the next stage as a result of getting some VR or situational judgement questions wrong, where the options for answering are very similar.

The next stage takes place one month from now, so I am going to guess that we'll receive news on our OOM placing in approx two weeks. Well done to all who completed the tests and good luck for the results and beyond ☘️

Protoman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119626643#Comment_119626643

From your username I suppose you're a reader of Tolstoy. A hardship posting in the Moscow winter awaits you!

Best of luck with the campaign!

HadjiMurat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119628542#Comment_119628542

Haha! Moscow would be well down the list of preferential places for a posting! If a posting was decided by a candidate's favourite writer, I would end up in Tokyo off the back of reading multiple Murakami novels 🎌😎

odelazy

Does anyone know how quickly the rankings/results from these tests would be released? I know the next round isn't for another month but presumably the scoring would be pretty much automatic for these tests.

paddyflynn_td

Looking at last Third Secretary Competition, albeit a different test formula, they got their results late evening about a week after. Perhaps we might get news tonight but with the Precis/2nd Stage still a bit away, if we don't hear today, I'd not expect hearing until today week. Best of luck!

niallkenny83

Any results yet folks? I haven't received anything myself

agoodusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119673039#Comment_119673039

Nothing yet, I imagine we'll get our results within a couple of hours of each other.

Would love some news by next Friday, I've quite a lot going on between now and the start of next year and would like to know if I need to be in the country for an interview in the next few months.

nsauce

Can't believe we still haven't heard anything regarding results. In 2020 they got their results a week after the testing period finished. The scoring is automatic like.

KRedzer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703402#Comment_119703402

Yeah it is mad. When is the next stage due to be - it's this month right?

nsauce

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703452#Comment_119703452

Yeah 24 October is when the next stage is supposed to start.

paddyflynn_td

Yes it's very nerve-wracking. Hopefully this evening or by Friday especially since Stage 1 started early so Stage 2 could start a little earlier as well. Perhaps the Budget allowances are a big factor this time round as they would have taken a lot from the last panel, it may be tighter making the panel this time round, alas that's only speculation. Here's hoping for news soon.

niallkenny83

Still nothing. At this stage Starting to think there may be a tech issue and theyre sorting through tests manually

ConsRoxMySox

A message there from PAS - that they still don't have results! Madness!

I'm pretty sure I bombed the situational judgement so I'd like to be put out of my misery at least.

nsauce

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119713381#Comment_119713381

Yeah I don't even get why they bothered to message saying results will be out in a week. I guess people must have been emailing asking when the results would be out.

agoodusername

Just inside the cutoff point, got results in the past 15 minutes

ConsRoxMySox

Results out - i will never puzzle out their scoring, because I scored highest in what I thought I did worst in.

KRedzer

Managed to rank in the 30s on the third time of trying, better get practicing for the Precis exercise - have never done one before.

nsauce

Does ranking in the 290s on Order of Merit mean I'm out of the running for sure if they intend on only calling up to 251?

Annoying because I got a really good score in both the verbal and numerical (well above the top third category for both in the feedback doc) but not so good in the Assessment Questionnaire and that must have brought me down a lot.

DaninMcSpanin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119731224#Comment_119731224

Very similar position here. Not the first time those sort of Questionnaires have tripped me up, never been any good at them.

niallkenny83

Hi all congrats to anyone proceeding to stage 2. Does anyone know if there are any public jobs precis tests we can practice or sample precis that we can review? (like we could for numeric, verbal and assessments)

Cheers

BLIZZARD7

Does anyone know roughly how many people applied? And also how many positions are available??

From what I have gathered so far, 25-30 have been hired in previous rounds.

So from what I've gathered, in previous years, they've never called beyond the OOM they said they would e.g. 251 this year. So if you're in the next 50, it's unlikely you'll be called?

janecleary

Hi all, got a message about the next stage and am a bit confused if I’m interpreting it correctly- for the precis excercise , is the time referenced in the message the only time one has to take the one hour assignment ? Or will testing time windows be issued during the week of the 24th of October ? Seems a bit odd for it to be an exact time during a work day rather than a time frame like the last tests

tomjmsn

As I understand it the time in the message is when your one hour timeslot commences.

odelazy

My interpretation was that everyone has the same time (10-11 am on Monday 24th), as presumably we will all get the same text to review. Prevents any cheating/unfair preparation etc.

agoodusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119771544#Comment_119771544

I'm on Wednesday afternoon fwiw

ConsRoxMySox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119771544#Comment_119771544

Mine was also today but in a different timeslot so they are evidently spread out.

Material is as dull as can be expected.

Ramnavk2

Completed the precis this afternoon too - nothing special from my end.

Wonder when we can expect results? Imagine ~2 weeks from Friday if they're testing people all week..

odelazy

I thought mine was okay too, hard to know how to do particularly well though.

Does anyone know will the Order of Merit after this round be solely based on the Precis, or some combination of the first two rounds?