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Administrative Officer 2023

plaidshirt

I didn't see a thread so starting one.

I applied for these a few years back and recall having passed but not being called so hoping for a better run around this year.

I think my main stumbling block is the Situational test. Do people actually know what it is they are looking for in this? In the example questions provided, I can see merit in any of the answers - but that would all depend on the existing culture. I think it's somewhat biased to existing CS to know what the culture within a place is, as there is no obvious objectively correct answers.

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vatsie76

Hi is the presentation extemporaneous or we can chose our own topics in advance and prepare ?

Limerick1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121386772#Comment_121386772

Ahh, many thanks for shedding some light on things, super helpful. I think I've almost become stuck trying to come up with a bulletproof example for each competency and am perhaps losing sight of the ability of an answer to communicate beyond what's actually said.

Assuming you're in this thread because you're entered the competition again, can I ask if you rejected the role you were offered? Currently debating whether, on the off chance that I was offered something, I might be better off to travel for a bit and try again next year with some degree of confidence in the likelihood of landing a role.

Limerick1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121387622#Comment_121387622

Hi! Okay, thanks, this is reassuring--I was under the impression that despite being aimed at graduates, the vast majority of successful candidates are slightly older and have a decent bit of work exp under the belt. Perhaps you don't know, but is the aim to hit each sub-section of each competency, or is more a case of generally hitting the main points with a fairly decent all round answer?

Haven't started working on the presentation yet, but part of me would definitely have preferred a specific set of topics as opposed to an open brief. Nonetheless, I think I'm going to draw fairly heavily on research done in university as it tracks fairly well with at least one of the challenges facing the country (and it's a subject I am consequently fairly familiar with). Not 100% on this though, feeling fairly uneasy about it all.

Best of luck, anyway, I'm sure with the MPA you'll be golden!!

Grateful4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121387720#Comment_121387720

Same question from me. We received some information in the booklet about stage 2 presentation & interview and it was an open brief but also said we would get more information if we reach that stage - so could we potentially be preparing our presentation now while waiting to be called for interview?? Thanks

ffvvvvv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121389050#Comment_121389050

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121387720#Comment_121387720

The presentation is an open brief. We have to pick a problem faced by the public service and, in no less than 8 slides and in 10 minutes or less, provide information about the topic and potential solutions and demonstrate how your skills in particular would suit you to fixing that issue. I imagine you would be totally fine to create the presentation when waiting for interview. At the end of presenting, there is a (maximum) 10 minutes of questions which it seems are based on the presentation and meant to tie in the cmpatencies evaluated in the second half of the interview.

Grateful4

@ffvvvvv thank you so much! Best of luck.

kb1234

Hello, no problem! Yes i was offered a position in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth but I'm living in Japan at the moment and I wasn't able to defer the offer so I decided not to take it. I'm glad I decided to stay in Japan tbh! The AO role will likely be opened for applications every year

apat7

Hi all, I know the presentation has an open brief in this round. But I'm just wondering if anyone know the kinds of topics that have been provided/suggested in previous rounds?

This is my first time applying and I'm not sure how to approach choosing a topic or where to pitch the presentation. Thanks in advance 🙏🏻

Limerick1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394760#Comment_121394760

Interesting, thanks for sharing. Definitely much to consider should my interview go well. Good luck!

apkmbarry

Last year they gave three topics and you had to choose one to present on. The topics were pretty broad and you essentially had to decide from the titles where you wanted your presentation to go.

ffvvvvv

Hi,

Was wondering if anyone knew if your performance in the aptitude tests are taken into consideration alongside your interview performance or are they just to qualify for the interview?

Grateful4

My understanding is the test scores are just for qualifying for interview - test scores determine in what order you are called for interview. The interview scores determine in what order you are called for a position /clearance.

Good luck anyone going for interview this week.

apkmbarry

They're just to qualify for presentation / interview, but they do play a role in how quick you may callled (if called at all)

The tests we've done determine our interview order. So if you're oom 1, you're first in the first batch and so on.

After the full batch is interviewed, they're then ordered based on interview performance for clearance.

plaidshirt

Extremely disappointed in how my interview went.

I had examples and prepped, but feel I was interrupted a lot which didn't fill me with confidence.

skidmarkoner

Chin up you probably did great. Did they interrupt you and keep on the point or did they move on?

plaidshirt

A couple of times insisted on a similar question, but generally moved on.

skidmarkoner

I wouldn't dwell to much on it so if they moved on fairly quick you covered your points.

MFPM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121433991#Comment_121433991

I had mine yesterday and one of the two doing the competencies interrupted a few times, I felt I was answering the question and generally answering well, but he interrupted me several times. The other person didn't interrupt me at all. It was hard to know how it went to be honest.

plaidshirt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121434764#Comment_121434764

Yeah, thanks - hopefully can still get positive news but was hoping for a little more satisfaction leaving the call. Will wait and see I suppose.

skidmarkoner

What was your OOM just out of curiosity?

plaidshirt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121437103#Comment_121437103

I just scraped into the top 100.

skidmarkoner

Like 80+? Just trying to gauge how fast they did this batch of interviews

Limerick1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121439333#Comment_121439333

Pretty sure the original booklet said this, the final stage, was scheduled from the 27th to the 1st (presumably meaning how long they expected it to take to get through batch 1

Limerick1001

Had my interview this week. Generally think it went fine-not awful, not amazing.

2 main takeaways:

-The questions on the presentation were more probing and numerous than I was expecting; I feel like they used the full 10 minutes.

-It can be a strange experience in that the panel give absolutely nothing away as to how you are performing, but they were all really nice.

Good luck to everyone

ffvvvvv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121439939#Comment_121439939

Had a similar experience in my one yesterday!

Found it quite intense in the Q&A section, with a lot of ground being made up in a very short period of time. I also found one of the panel particularly bullish and prone to interrupt (he was friendly just tough as an interviewer). Overall, like a few here, I'm not as happy as I hoped to be with how I performed but seeing that that seems to be quite a common experience gives me a bit of hope.

I was able to manage the questions on the presentation quite well. I'm just afraid if they mark all the competencies individually, I might be in trouble as I was really knocked off balance at a couple of stages from the regularity of interruptions and how swiftly the topics were changed.

Does anyone have any idea when the first round results will be released?

Limerick1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445236#Comment_121445236

Personally, I felt the two assessors had very different approaches to assessing my competencies, with one seeming to ask 1/2 standard questions per competency, with the other seeming to ask 4/5, as if assessing each sub-competency individually. As a result, the answers I was giving for the second were necessarily much shorter and I am slightly concerned that I failed to get everything across.

As far as I know, the results are released within two weeks of the final interview in the batch, meaning it could in theory be in two weeks from Friday. However, if an interview is rescheduled for some reason or another, I believe this can delay things.

Limerick1001

To anyone who's been through this before, are interview results simply a notification of a pass/fail, or do we get a breakdown of scoring by competency/presentation etc.?

kb1234

From last year, I got a breakdown based on the competencies, you need to get over a threshold mark for them all to pass the interview :)

okbreakfast

When do they normally get to the 300s and how big are the batches? I saw someone commented above that they were in the lower 300s last year and didn’t get their interview until June; is that generally the case for this campaign?

sunny247

@okbreakfast It will probably depend on how many pass the interview in each batch and how many vacancies are assigned. I think the first batch called was larger than last year’s so maybe they feel like they need to move through faster?