NEW 2022 Assistant Principal Competition - Open and Interdepartmental

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Outside Dublin deparments would favour internal candidates(outside PAS) and prob used their open sequency for dublin only positions.Add to that Revenue would have there own open AP panel outside of PAS too.

Goes to show the attrition rate too. 210 positions filled from the 2020 yet thousand+ went through the rounds.

Lots of 2018 candidates complained how they weren't paneled in 2018 but they were(AOs) in 2016 but 2016 may had a more lenient assessment process given the numbers PAS had to fill

Does anyone know if you moved on mobility, are you eleigible to apply for this? I know you've to stay in your new role for 2 years before you can move again on mobility but can you apply for promotion within the two years? Thanks

I subscribed to this website with aptitude test packages in July 2021 which cost €39 for all test packages: https://www.practiceaptitudetests.com. The cost of one test package is €29, so it's worth paying a bit more for the whole lot of them. Happy to say that I passed the AP aptitude test stage as well as all other stages, leading to my AP placement this month. The practice tests certainly prepped me for the real thing and improved my proficiency, so I do recommend them.

Last year I tried these ones and they were very helpful. I ended up in the 1st batch.

Irish Civil Service Assistant Principal Test Prep (jobtestprep.co.uk)

For the people who have been through the process before or gotten AP -

I'm wondering roughly what my chances are. I've been in the CS since the end of May as an AO, I have 3 years of experience as a store manager for a coffee shop. I'm good at aptitude tests and interviews. I'm just wondering how heavily they weight experience, obviously I'm fairly new to the CS, at least I have some previous management experience.

Any tips for competing or stories to share that might help any of us?

Clarification: with the full package of tests with this provider, there is access for 12 months, so ignore my reference to 3 and 6 months.

Thanks a million,that's really helpful and great to know people have used the materials successfully

Yes, seems to spell out that it's aptitude tests, followed by shortlisting based on forms. The recent PO competition was straight to interview after the tests and the most recent HEO competition was aptitude tests, followed by shortlisting based on forms where candidates got a new order of merit. Hopefully that's the way this will go and the dreaded video interview is consigned to history.

I would imagine the testing window will be late November early December.

Thanks a mil for sharing this resource, super helpful!

Sorry to jump on this, but does anyone know when the next Open HEO competition is likely to be?

CO and EO competitions already this year.

Im in Public service so would need to apply to an open competition.

thanks

The AO position is what you need to be looking out for and just like the HEO it's a middle management role. Unfortunately, it was advertised already this year, it is mainly a policy role, and you need a level 8 to be eligible

Looks like it's 4000 characters (about 500 words or so). I'm applying it to a specific example and trying to hit as many aspects of the relevant competency as I can.

500 words on each example is still quite a hefty target to be hitting. Personally, I'm using this as a limit and not a target. Yes, I can certainly take my 200/300 word examples from previous forms and add in a few more sentences. But I cant really see myself going anywhere near the limit when explaining my duties within each of my roles to date.

The personal statement is a bit of a head scratcher for me. As a serving civil servant, it is not something that I have completed for any of my promotions to date. Maybe a recent PAS AP form had it on it?

I have submitted my application. I didn’t get too caught up in the word count - quality over quantity.

The personal statement was new to me, but, I gave it my best shot. I’ve never applied for AP before so all very new.

Whatever you put into your application needs to flow like a proper time line, you shouldn't put in say a job that ended 3 years prior to your civil service then have a gap of 3 years between it and the civil service. They want to know gaps are accounted for, be it for going back to college or a career break etc.

But professional experience would be better to put in rather than say a retail job from a decade ago unless you were say a manager/supervisor etc. that maybe you might use for your competency questions.

Hello!

It's been a while since I was in the competion cycle - can anyone advise me whether there is a way to save your previous roles and education on publicjobs.ie so as not to have to type it in for each separate competition? Or is it just a question of re-pasting it in from a stand alone document each time?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

whoosh2

Hi all, just wondering if anyone else had issues submitting the application today? I was (last minute) finalising my application and about to submit at 14:55 and the application disappeared and told me the deadline had passed. I immediately sent an email to PAS with screenshot. Anyone else experienced this before?

Same issue here.

Great to hear I'm not the only one. I was in absolute shock when it just disappeared. I know it was last minute, but I still had plenty of time to screenshot, write and send an email to PAS before the 3pm deadline. So should have been able to submit!