Clerical Officer 2020

As someone who has been through the public jobs process a few times in the many campaigns both full time and TCO it really is baffling just how theses things are run. Firstly the many stages that campaigns go through, ie, the online questionnaires or the "aptitude tests which are widely debunked as an accurate means of determining anything, are really only a pc way for the public jobs people to cull off applicants. The private sector does this by taking a pile of applications at random and firing them in the bin.


Firstly having heard the aptitude tests weren't going ahead this year I was glad I applied for this campaign. I really doubt the relevance of the aptitude test because as a TCO Ive never seen anyone in any full time position, in the revenue or anywhere else, doing 30 vat calculations in under a minute and I know getting a high score in the error checking and your english language handling abilities is more important as a CO than how quickly you can bash buttons on a calculator. Also consistently coming in the top 50 in the order of merit in numerous online questioners for TCO campaigns, which are exactly the same questions as in the CO version, I thought I was in with a good chance, no because it's a total lottery.

There are several reasons why the process takes as long as a snail reversing back a forward moving conveyor belt but one of them must be that they take several months to move goalposts especially since the results of these questionnaires and aptitude tests, all of which are on digital format, are most likely calculated on the day or within a few days.

Nekarsulm wrote: »

TCO is good to get, the experience will be invaluable in interviews later.
A working knowledge of SAP (if her department uses it) is great to have as well.

Ya you have enough cynicism built up to know that these campaigns are manly run to give full timers work to do and the stages have no basis in reality.

Banana Republic 1 wrote: »

As someone who has been through the public jobs process a few times in the many campaigns both full time and TCO it really is baffling just how theses things are run. Firstly the many stages that campaigns go through, ie, the online questionnaires or the "aptitude tests which are widely debunked as an accurate means of determining anything, are really only a pc way for the public jobs people to cull off applicants. The private sector does this by taking a pile of applications at random and firing them in the bin.


Firstly having heard the aptitude tests weren't going ahead this year I was glad I applied for this campaign. I really doubt the relevance of the aptitude test because as a TCO Ive never seen anyone in any full time position, in the revenue or anywhere else, doing 30 vat calculations in under a minute and I know getting a high score in the error checking and your english language handling abilities is more important as a CO than how quickly you can bash buttons on a calculator. Also consistently coming in the top 50 in the order of merit in numerous online questioners for TCO campaigns, which are exactly the same questions as in the CO version, I thought I was in with a good chance, no because it's a total lottery.

There are several reasons why the process takes as long as a snail reversing back a forward moving conveyor belt but one of them must be that they take several months to move goalposts especially since the results of these questionnaires and aptitude tests, all of which are on digital format, are most likely calculated on the day or within a few days.

avilaloca97 wrote: »

Hi guys, I am a little bit stressed right now I've been laid off from my job due to covid -19 and the future of the business where I'm employed is very uncertain. I applied for this gig, I'm ranked 367 for Galway my score was 5837 and I ranked 309 for westmeath, I am pretty new to these competitions, should I give up hope on being called for an interview? Thanks guys, best of luck to all x

There a good chance you could be called but Id keep breathing in the mean time

finla wrote: »

I was top 5 last year and now 206, I thought it was strange also, a mate of mine is the same, top 5 last year and 300s now. We both put the same answers as last time. Is there a massive increase in applications? Or have they changed the way they score it.
Weird.

Ranking people on the basis of that questionnaire is like predicting the price of cabbage in ten years. Of course they've changed the scoring parameters because they cant arbitrarily cull people now that the "aptitude" test is not part of this campaign. Bear in mind that the results of the COMPUTER based questionnaire were probably calculated straight after you clicked submit.