Principal Officer competition 2022

No . Have to work out notice but they would have been happy for me to start the next day!

Hi, that’s really interesting - thanks for mentioning. I’m on the panel too but well down the list. Would you mind giving us an idea of roughly where you are on the list and how many they said are ahead of you?

Don't want to be too specific but I'm in the 50s and less than 30 ahead of me on Dublin panel. That was before most recent movement. Not sure at what point in the process people are taken out of the panel numbers.

Congrats @Bowiegal !

Great news @Bowiegal Wishing you every success.

I didn't make the POH panel. Did ok in most sections at interview (better than PO in some) but fell down on the specialized knowledge where I was asked about banking specifics that I didn't know.

That is a pity @softskills but you still have this panel. I'm surprised at them asking you questions about banking considering they would have been recruiting for Taoiseachs and DPER and not just Finance. Intersting to see how many they put on a panel. Although they took so few off the last Higher panel.

Yeah, I did wonder about this also. I guess IR is not for everyone so maybe that is their rationale in putting it out there. That said, I was struck by the same thought as you that it was a bit irregular to ask for EOI out of order.

Any movement on the panel?

Goods news @DaDoRonRonRon - well done. Let us know how it progresses.

Is that for Dublin? If so, it's moved on a good bit since end Nov.

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

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

Congrats @baxza and @Hibearnian

Great to see the panel moving at a decent pace

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.

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

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

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?

Mid-60s contacted for clearance :-)

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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