Administrative Officer 2020 in the Civil Service

Any word on anyone being called from the general stream yet?

FenFlynn wrote: »

Thanks for that.
I am probably over thinking at this stage but it's hard not to so close to the extra event now.
Hopefully I'll be able to pass everything.

When I did it in December, there were 4 people on the call with me. 3 people asking questions and a notetaker. I did powerpoint so that I was constantly looking at the slides and not getting distracted by the interviewers and also so I wasnt looking down at notes as I had the slides to go off of. At the 9th minute the chair will tell you there's one minute left but apart from that they're quiet for the whole presentation. They then asked questions on the presentation.
Then they ran through who would be asking about what topics. Have scenarios prepared on all the topics they listed such as leadership, communication etc. as they asked varied questions on the topics but you can nearly always morph your answer to fit their question if you have a scenario going into the interview. They asked some general questions on my previous experience and academic skills at the end. It was an hour and 45 minutes I think but the time flew in. I was very nervous going into it but once I had the presentation finished, I was much more relaxed. The people who interviewed me were all very lovely and it wasn't so formal towards the end of the interview. Remember, if you have made it to this stage of the interview they believe you have the abilities and skills for the job and want to hire you, so you just need to do your best to show that. Best of luck!

eganr29 wrote: »

When I did it in December, there were 4 people on the call with me. 3 people asking questions and a notetaker. I did powerpoint so that I was constantly looking at the slides and not getting distracted by the interviewers and also so I wasnt looking down at notes as I had the slides to go off of. At the 9th minute the chair will tell you there's one minute left but apart from that they're quiet for the whole presentation. They then asked questions on the presentation.
Then they ran through who would be asking about what topics. Have scenarios prepared on all the topics they listed such as leadership, communication etc. as they asked varied questions on the topics but you can nearly always morph your answer to fit their question if you have a scenario going into the interview. They asked some general questions on my previous experience and academic skills at the end. It was an hour and 45 minutes I think but the time flew in. I was very nervous going into it but once I had the presentation finished, I was much more relaxed. The people who interviewed me were all very lovely and it wasn't so formal towards the end of the interview. Remember, if you have made it to this stage of the interview they believe you have the abilities and skills for the job and want to hire you, so you just need to do your best to show that. Best of luck!

Thank you so much for such detailed explanation on this. Appreciate your help!

yop_mayo wrote: »

Or indeed, any stream?

I don’t want to turn this thread into a weekly bump of “has anyone heard?”, but I did think I would receive word from now. Maybe covid? — has anybody at all been contacted?

I’m early 20’s in OOM for health stream and haven’t heard anything yet. I believe they are working off the panel at the moment.

mouton wrote: »

How far in advance of the interview do you receive the materials to prepare for the presentation?

There was a hyperlink to a PDF called “Familiarisation Booklet for Final Stage: Main Interview & Presentation” in the message notifying and in that booklet it said if you haven’t received your brief for the presentation by 3pm 7 days in advance of your allocated slot to contact them on an email address provided.

I received my brief shortly before 3 o’clock a week before my allocated interview day.

2020Survivor wrote: »

There was a hyperlink to a PDF called “Familiarisation Booklet for Final Stage: Main Interview & Presentation” in the message notifying and in that booklet it said if you haven’t received your brief for the presentation by 3pm 7 days in advance of your allocated slot to contact them on an email address provided.

I received my brief shortly before 3 o’clock a week before my allocated interview day.

Thanks for the info.! That's much more time than I was expecting.

ddpas wrote: »

They're moving on the panel btw

Thanks for the update! Any chance you know what number they are up to?

ddpas wrote: »

They're moving on the panel btw

How do you know that, mate?

ddpas wrote: »

Was contacted for clearance

Congrats!

Does anyone know the approach? Do they prioritise from the various streams, etc.

Wyattwouldnt wrote: »

Just hazarding a guess but it would make sense to prioritise the specialist streams wouldn't it? There are probably a good few of us in more than one stream and if they placed candidates from the General stream first they might run the risk of depleting the numbers of candidates available for specialist roles.
I have no idea though...I could be way off :pac:

I’m gonna go ahead and choose to take this as fact, as I’m on the specialist stream and it’ll do wonders for the lockdown mental health

yop_mayo wrote: »

Yup, they ask you very directly about competencies during the interview so don’t be trying to shoehorn into presentation. Just focus on practicing doing the thing and read as much as you can on the topic for the questions.

That's good to know! I was going through the brief which states the presentation would be assessed based on competencies as well as the interview itself. It'll be great if you are right, then all I've left to do it memorise the presentation and engage further with my topics.

You are given a topic and you have to research it and make your presentation based upon it. You will be asked questions on how you came to your conclusion or recommendations etc. You will go straight into interview from there. That’s where you will give examples of competencies etc and each interviewer will ask questions on a particular topic. 10 minutes goes by very quick for your presentation so about 10 slides each at 1 minute will be loads. Make sure you time it and practice it out loud.
Expect to be talking for about 1hr 10 mins. You will need water beside you. Interviewers are very fair and direct.
It’s a zoom meeting obviously and sharing your screen for your power point does not work with iPad, so a windows based laptop/ PC is safest bet. You will be invited to test your hardware prior to the interview with someone from PAS. I’ve a new iPad Pro and it wouldn’t work on the test day, so I used my laptop for the interview.

I'm wondering if you are allowed to read through the slides for most part of it, I'm finding it hard to remember everything I wrote. I do still have a few days to try my best to learn everything off, but I'm worried about giving too much information on the slides and be caught out that way.

FYI,
As of Friday at 4 pm, they had called up to OOM 3 on the Administrative Officer General panel.

Source: I spoke with PAS

Maelenn wrote: »

FYI,
As of Friday at 4 pm, they had called up to OOM 3 on the Administrative Officer General panel.

Source: I spoke with PAS

Thanks a million for the update!

Anyone else hear post clearance? I was contacted for clearance a while ago, does anyone know how long it takes and if we will be started remotely due to the current situation?

For anyone that has been contacted about obtaining clearance and being under consideration for a post, how were you contacted? By phone or email or was it a notification to your PAS message board?

Also, in terms of verifying your qualifications, how is this being done? I know in the past for a competition I was successful in that PAS were running, I was able to bring in my qualifications in-person for them to take a copy of because I didn’t want to risk them in the post or risk them being damaged while PAS had them, like a cup of tea or coffee spilled on them, but obviously now it’s remote working as much as possible now, and for the foreseeable, so calling in in-person isn’t looking like an option.

Spore wrote: »

Has any one get any advice on researching their presentation topic? I've a question involving the health system and I haven't the first idea of how to research it! Is is best to go with scholarly articles on jStore for example? Or are newspaper publications ok? How much detail should I go into? Should the presentation be referenced?

Newspaper publications are fine. For health issues, have a look at the HSE and Department of Health's websites, you may find some materials there. You may also want to look at some white papers for medtech / pharmaceutical companies as well. Academic articles are fine for background or to give information, but they're unlikely to be very helpful for convincing your boss to do anything!

Some general advice that I found really helpful for mine- remember that you're a prospective AO who's presenting to senior management at least three grades above you. There is no prospect at all that you'd be entrusted to do so by yourself. Refer to yourself in the first person plural (i.e. "we suggest" etc) and if they follow up on that, say that this proposal was devised by you but signed off by your manager and Principal Officer.

Think of benefits of whatever you're proposing through the point of view of the state and in particular the civil service rather than for their own sake, or vague concepts like "the population." For instance, nobody is going to say that having more hospitals for their own sake is a bad idea, but it's far easier to persuade someone to act on it if you can say that this will result in a healthier population, which means less absenteeism from the workplace, better preparation for epidemics or other health emergencies, and reduced litigation against the state (etc).

The main opposition you'll encounter to pretty much any practical proposal is its cost and you're better off pre-empting that rather than having them follow up. You'll need to prove that whatever you're proposing is so beneficial that inherently is worth the implementation cost (this is a difficult line to take), or that the benefits will save money in the long run and so are worth the start-up cost (e.g. better to pay to build a new hospital now, rather than have the health service overrun in an emergency and keeping a huge part of the population out of work, thus damaging the economy).

Other than that, try to generally think of pros and cons. Remember that vague concepts don't work well in the civil service; it works best when policies are clear and have discernable actions and timelines (e.g. "improve the health service" vs "build 10 new hospitals across the state by 2025"). The best of luck with it!

FenFlynn wrote: »

I have mine tomorrow, super nervous.
Are the questions they ask after the presentation very tough? Will they dig a lot into your extra findings? My issue is remembering all the stats and the numerous publications I went through to do the research. Do they also ask about current policies/frameworks in place already that relate to the suggestions I make?

I found the questions fair and directly related to what you presented. They will delve a little into why you came to your conclusion or recommendations and question if you have considered the implications of that and what affect it may have in relation to rights etc, so you must be robust in your findings and support your recommendations based on what you have discovered in your research. Your sources or references will be questioned, as in why you chose those as a resource etc

They do ask you about policies and what your understanding is. I would suggest you read up on governmental policies and perhaps how they are made under the Irish system. But don’t go over board, a good synopses of policy making etc will stand to you. It’s a long interview but does go by quickly.