Clerical Positions in the Civil and Public Service

starlit

400 points was the maximum you'd get yet the minimum was under 200 when you add up the minimum and maximum scores. That doesn't make sense if that's the case no one under 250 got through then?

jaffusmax

Divisadero wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand your question completely but all panels run independently. You remain on a panel until you receive a job offer or until the panel expires (usually after 2 years or so). If you are offered a job in Dublin for example you must take that offer when it comes (you cannot defer) or you are removed from the panel. Then others will move up. Your place on the Louth panel will remain if you refuse the Dublin job.

I think people whose first preference is outside Dublin but chose Dublin as that's where most of the jobs usually are will face a dilemma. As if they receive an early offer it will most likely be for Dublin. At least in the first instance. We shall see...

Thx, yeah my question was a bit hard to put into words. I just wanted to know if you refuse Dublin in the hope of getting somewhere closer to home, so if each region is run independently you would then need to do another interview and supervised test I presume.

edit

I am mainly asking as if you have Dublin as second preference and they are calling people first for supervised tests what would the set up be for people have Dublin as second choice and scored highly.

Divisadero

jaffusmax wrote: »

Thx, yeah my question was a bit hard to put into words. I just wanted to know if you refuse Dublin in the hope of getting somewhere closer to home, so if each region is run independently you would then need to do another interview and supervised test I presume.

edit

I am mainly asking as if you have Dublin as second preference and they are calling people first for supervised tests what would the set up be for people have Dublin as second choice and scored highly.

As far as I'm aware the three choices are not ranked into preferences it is just a matter of where the vacancies arise first. That's why it will be a tough decision if you would prefer to work outside Dublin.

What I mean is you are most likely to be offered Dublin first. So do you take that job or refuse it in the hope of an offer of a position in Louth that in reality might never come.

To the best of my knowledge (although you should check with the PAS) once you take a job from one of your chosen areas you will then be removed from the other areas. I mean you can't take the Dublin job as a stop gap until something comes up in Louth.

jaffusmax

Thx again, I think I will just take whatever may come up first and be thankful for it! Hopefully!

butterly.john

jaffusmax wrote: »

Thx, yeah my question was a bit hard to put into words. I just wanted to know if you refuse Dublin in the hope of getting somewhere closer to home, so if each region is run independently you would then need to do another interview and supervised test I presume.

edit

I am mainly asking as if you have Dublin as second preference and they are calling people first for supervised tests what would the set up be for people have Dublin as second choice and scored highly.

I actually rang the pas yesterday as I am in a similar position, I had Dublin, Westmeath/Offally, & Meath as my 3 choices and got a place on each. They adviesd me that if I refuse Dublin then I am still on the other 2 panals but there is no guarantee that I would ever be called in those areas, they said if I take Dublin I am automatically removed from the other panals. Aslo the test that I do for will count as the test for the other chosen regions as well.

Morleystreet

Well done to all who are through to next stage. Some people have scored exceptionally well, say 320 and above. Those are genuinely brilliant scores. I just wondering that will people who get those scores actually take a role that pays about 21k. Just thinking that they surely would be able to get higher paid job somewhere. Suppose just wondering what percentage of people might pass up the job, given that they very good potential if they have scored high, n given cost of living in Dublin if had to move there.

Divisadero

I don't know about that. But I would say that quite a few (if not most) of the higher flyers that do accept a post will be gone within the year. Especially if the economy continues to improve.

SONIC2008

Roisinbunny wrote: »

So just got my results for Limerick -

Your total score: 276

Your place is: 548

Honestly, I feel so stupid. I got 520 points in my Leaving Cert, I have a degree and a professional qualification but those tests made me feel as thick as a ditch

Hmmm here are my results for Limerick!


Your total score: 276

Your place is: 548

I'm out of the game.
But for those of you who think your place can determine how many got ahead of you, then you haven't accounted for those with equal scores!

Good luck!

Tarzana

SONIC2008 wrote: »

But for those of you who think your place can determine how many got ahead of you, then you haven't accounted for those with equal scores!

No, as explained earlier, if you're ranked 1000, there is no more than 999 people ahead of you.

Eg

Joe comes first. Tony, Sheila and Jezabelle (I like picking the names. ) come second, Jedward come third and Malachy comes last. The rankings are:

1. Joe
4. Tony, Sheila and Jezabelle
6. Jedward
7. Malachy

So, Malachy has 6 people ahead of him and is placed 7th.

SONIC2008

Tarzana wrote: »

No, as explained earlier, if you're ranked 1000, there is no more than 999 people ahead of you.

Eg

Joe comes first. Tony, Sheila and Jezabelle (I like picking the names. ) come second, Jedward come third and Malachy comes last. The rankings are:

1. Joe
4. Tony, Sheila and Jezabelle
6. Jedward
7. Malachy

Haha I like the name examples. Ah I get ya, sorry I hadn't read that! My bad.

paudy

Placed 36 in Kilkenny/Carlow and 37 in Waterford/Wexford fingers crossed

SONIC2008

paudy wrote: »

Placed 36 in Kilkenny/Carlow and 37 in Waterford/Wexford fingers crossed

That is excellent. What score did you get?

paudy

SONIC2008 wrote: »

That is excellent. What score did you get?

306

Tarzana

Tarzana wrote: »

No, as explained earlier, if you're ranked 1000, there is no more than 999 people ahead of you.

Eg

Joe comes first. Tony, Sheila and Jezabelle (I like picking the names. ) come second, come third and Malachy comes last. The rankings are:

1. Joe
4. Tony, Sheila and Jezabelle
6. Jedward
7. Malachy

So, Malachy has 6 people ahead of him and is placed 7th.

Do Jedward not count as twins? :pac:

Tarzana

Deleted User wrote: »

Do Jedward not count as twins? :pac:

Yeah, that's why they're 6th and not 5th! :pac:

mariosuarez

I scored very well in Dublin and another region and I have a masters degree and strong IT skills. I have a low level job in financial services with a salary a few thousand more than 21K for this job.
I am confident I would get this job but feel it is a step down. Most people tell me to take CO job if I get it as it is a handy secure job for life with good benefits. I feel I would be unambitious and lazy to take it. My first thought was not to take it but 9/10 people say to take CO job.

Any opinions?

Tarzana

mariosuarez wrote: »

I scored very well in Dublin and another region and I have a masters degree and strong IT skills. I have a low level job in financial services with a salary a few thousand more than 21K for this job.
I am confident I would get this job but feel it is a step down. Most people tell me to take CO job if I get it as it is a handy secure job for life with good benefits. I feel I would be unambitious and lazy to take it. My first thought was not to take it but 9/10 people say to take CO job.

Any opinions?

Why would you leave a low level job that pays more for one that pays less? Surely you can progress in your current career with your skills?

Also, what is your ranking? Not everyone who gets to the next stage is guaranteed a job.

The_Conductor

mariosuarez wrote: »

I scored very well in Dublin and another region and I have a masters degree and strong IT skills. I have a low level job in financial services with a salary a few thousand more than 21K for this job.
I am confident I would get this job but feel it is a step down. Most people tell me to take CO job if I get it as it is a handy secure job for life with good benefits. I feel I would be unambitious and lazy to take it. My first thought was not to take it but 9/10 people say to take CO job.

Any opinions?

I took a large paycut to join the civil service (as an EO).
I faced the same dilemma as you- and indeed most of my contemporaries scorned my decision to join the civil service at the time.
I joined primarily for the reasons you're mentioning here.
My net take home pay was higher in 1999- 15 years ago- than it is now.
I do however have flexitime, a much shorter commute and the ability to play a part in my children's life, that I might not otherwise have been able to do.
However- every penny over 32,500 I earn- is taxed between various deductions and the pension levy- at just over 60%. I have no overtime or allowances. Any work related travel has to be approved at least 3 steps up the line. The last promotion competition I went for- had almost 50 candidates for every available opening..........

The working day has recently increased by a half hour- and flexi has reduced in its flexibility- its a lot more strict than ever before.

If you feel you have a reasonable chance to getting a promotion in a reasonable timeframe (which I'd suggest is 5-10 years) then- go for it.

The big opportunity for people like you- is there is a policy of encouraging further education- so even if you don't get to use your skillset in work, your mind can be kept nimble.

If your managers are any good at all- they will do their best to utilise your skills though- even as an EO- I was sent on financial accounting and foreign language classes- and got to use them in my every day work.

It can be a good job- and if you display competence to your managers- often they will go out of their way to try to utilise your skills- to both their and your benefit.

Don't automatically turn down the job- do consider it- but I'd suggest considering it as a stepping stone, rather than a destination in its own right........

jaffusmax

mariosuarez wrote: »

I scored very well in Dublin and another region and I have a masters degree and strong IT skills. I have a low level job in financial services with a salary a few thousand more than 21K for this job.
I am confident I would get this job but feel it is a step down. Most people tell me to take CO job if I get it as it is a handy secure job for life with good benefits. I feel I would be unambitious and lazy to take it. My first thought was not to take it but 9/10 people say to take CO job.

Any opinions?

If you are happy with mundane go with the co position if not stay clear. I spent a number of years in the public service and I prefer the mundane. I remember talking a young girl out of taking a tco role she thought may become permanent instead of teachings position. She is still teaching and that tco job lead nowhere.

sillysocks

Having worked in financial services and as a tco this year I'd suggest very careful consideration before taking a job in the civil service. In financial services while you might start low the opportunities for promotion and further in your career are way higher from what I've seen as a tco. In financial services I was promoted every 1-2 years, you could be years waiting for the promotion in civil service. And with each promotion comes decent enough pay rises, plus in good times you'd get pay rises every year. Also, there's so many financial companies in Dublin now that if you get fed up where you are there's plenty of scope for change.

The civil service might be good for some things like flexitime, term time, but the hours aren't as good as they were before. To be honest I have found it quite frustrating as a tco-everything is very set in ways in there, and it doesn't feel much like people are rewarded for hard work.

If you're young and ambitious I'd take my chances staying where you are.

mariosuarez

Around 100 and it says 887 are going to stage 2 in Dublin. There would be progression in my job but colleagues say I should take CO job. I placed only 50 in my home region which may not have many jobs and I am thinking of turning down Dublin if it's soon and hope that I get on panel for other region and I get offered job in home region in about 12 months. Then I will have better idea of new job as I'm only here 6 months and still learning. I have also heard that EO jobs may be out in a few months. I'd apply for that and hope to get it as the starting salary is the same as current salary.

I know I could possibly take CO and get promoted to EO but I think I want to give financial services a year and see if I get offered home region eventually or see if EO jobs are available.

I'm going to do supervised exams and do interviews and as far as I can and then decide.

sillysocks

I would definitely do the exams and interview and try get on the panel. It's no harm to keep your options open.
With regards colleagues I'd say the grass is always greener. I would have thought the civil service would have been a fab place to get a job for the easy life, hours etc. But after bring there short term I think long term it would drive me mad, or maybe I'd settle into that way of working but for someone coming from private sector it's just a whole other pace and way of working.

I also scored well in my area (top ten), and even given all I've said above in still going to go ahead with next stages so I have options over the next while.

Also, remember that just being placed 50th in your preferred region means nothing at the moment, your final panel place is determined by interview so you may well be higher up after that.

Divisadero

If job security, work life balance and perhaps your pension are your only (that's right only!) concerns then maybe yes should consider it. But if you are a remotely ambitious and dynamic indvidual. I would say stay clear. If your career is your whole world it's not the place for you either. If you have lots of interests outside work it might suit you better.

The biggest problem I found with the system is that you are not rewarded by management for your efforts. In fact even those that bother to notice have no power to promote you. Even when promotions come up (which isn't often) they are through exam based competitions like this one. Okay if you get to the interview stage your work record may come into consideration. But once you have a clean sheet you should be fine. So unlike the private sector your managers have no power to promote excellent staff over the dead wood.

You are good at exams but it could still take you a long time to move up although there is supposed to be an EO comp later this year. But you might not find that much better.

You could just take the job and try it out for a while and decide for yourself. You could also do the EO exam if it comes up whilst working as a CO. The Civil Service sounds great on paper especially these days and for some it is but it can also suck the life out of people. I used to often feel mediocrity and keeping your head down rather than passion and excellence were rewarded in the two departments where I worked. But once again job security and the ability to take time off to be with your family are also important. They are also good about paying for part-time study. Over to you!

pharmaton

Qualified for stage 2 but I won't be holding my breath unless 906 other people don't fair so well in the second round testing.

I did p+ss poor only just scraping the qualifying marks for each section and surprisingly faired better in numerical (47) than I did on verbal and error (45,43 respectively). Given that I only managed to answer one and a bit numerical questions and thought I did extremely badly at the time, I felt more positively about the error and verbal which I managed a lot more of and I'd have serious reservations about how I actually managed to pass it at all.
Anyways, best of luck to those of you who did so well.

mariosuarez

Thanks for everyone's opinions. I am going to keep all options open for now and go as far as I can with CO but my gut is telling me I'll stay in financial services for now but I'll consider it in the future if I get called in a year or so and I'll also apply for EO if it becomes available and see what happens.

pharmaton

Divisadero wrote: »

You could just take the job and try it out for a while and decide for yourself. You could also do the EO exam if it comes up whilst working as a CO. The Civil Service sounds great on paper especially these days and for some it is but it can also suck the life out of people. I used to often feel mediocrity and keeping your head down rather than passion and excellence was rewarded in the two departments where I worked. But once again job security and the ability to take time off to be with your family are also important. They are also good about paying for part-time study. Over to you!

Thanks for this post. I'm currently interning as a clerical officer with the option of working through an agency in the same department when I sign off. I did the co exam as I felt it was a requirement in case future positions arose for which I may have a chance of securing . Given my poor results I won't be holding my breath but at the same time I feel that while I enjoy the work I'm doing, I'm not sure I would be content doing it forever or not being able to upgrade a few years down the line and with my experience and recent qualifications I'd really like to see what other options might be out there.

( and can start on a business degree now that the path has been cleared)

Occono

I went over the FAQ, and I see why I did so much worse than I expected: There were 160 maximum points for the personality/conflict resolution test, where you said how you would address issues in the workplace, and I only got 60. It wasn't my other marks.

Any advice can I improve myself on that for the future?

jaffusmax

Occono wrote: »

I went over the FAQ, and I see why I did so much worse than I expected: There were 160 maximum points for the personality/conflict resolution test, where you said how you would address issues in the workplace, and I only got 60. It wasn't my other marks.

Any advice can I improve myself on that for the future?

Instead of marking what you would like to do in certain situations given just mark the opposite :P

Occono

jaffusmax wrote: »

Instead of marking what you would like to do in certain situations given just mark the opposite :P

If I got 0 points I would do that.

Really though...is there any basic advice guides for that sort of thing? I did work experience in college but there was no training for issues like that.

Cakewheels

Occono wrote: »

If I got 0 points I would do that.

Really though...is there any basic advice guides for that sort of thing? I did work experience in college but there was no training for issues like that.

There's a lot of talk about the type of questions in this over in the TCO threads, not sure if it is this years one or last years.

I've been working as a TCO recently and I think what they are looking for in those tests is actually the opposite of the type of thing you might read in an advice guide. Where sometimes you might see things like 'owning the problem' in a work or customer service context, the civil service is so hierarchical that that sort of mentality is not necessarily rewarded - at the CO level you need to be able to focus just on the basic/routine thing you are supposed to be doing. It is fine to go out of your way to help a member of the public if the situation is suitable, but anything more complex than your normal routine has to get sent up the line, even if you would feel confident in doing it yourself. When doing the test, remember they are testing for what they want COs to do now, and not whether or not you might make good HEO or higher material in a few years time.