2020 Executive Officer Civil Service

Mc Love

Dublintigger wrote: »

Just in relation to the recording - when you logged in, were you prompted to show your ID and scan the room?
And the random recording - were you aware/did you know when you were being recorded?

Yeah you show your ID beside you for about 30 seconds and then span the room.

Yes to the random recording however if you do cheat, you wont know about until it pops up

November Golf

jaqqq wrote: »

Just finished my assessment and as I expected there was a lot of guessing in the numerical. I'm thinking one or two of those guesses may have been right as the next question was harder, but most of the time it was followed up by a softer one meaning it was wrong. There was one set of questions in relation to cars and mileage and it may as well have been written in Esperanto. Didn't come into it with any expectations having fared poorly in these numerical tests before but even this was a bit more than ones I have done previously I'd say. That's the end of the road for me anyway, best of luck to the rest of ye

Firstly congratulation on completing the test, best of luck with your results.

Secondly, I think there is a lot of speculation with the adaptivity tests. People are assuming if it was wrong it gets easy and right it gets harder however that may not be the case.

It could be the case that questions get harder when you answer too quickly and easy if you are taking too long. Its also likely that easier vs harder questions are weighted differently so its difficult to draw any conclusions.

Blarney_man

These were awful to be honest

hillbloom

Can you pick which test to start with. And can you spend as long as it takes you to do all the questions. In other words does it log you out if taking too long. I understand that would affect the results. I am dreading the Numerical!!

Furious-Red

My plan is to do a few sample questions for each tomorrow morning. Then either just do the actual test later in the evening or Saturday morning to get rid of it but I'm not looking forward to it :pac:

Cirrus Incus

What exactly does the job of executive civil service entail? Is it just office work? Why is there so much competition for it? Is it job security that attracts people?

Nekarsulm

Job security sure, it's not the stella wages, that's for sure.....!
But the annual increments help, and the work conditions are generally good.
Edit, also its popular because the open competition is perceived as a bit easier than the series of interviews in the internal EO competition.
It's worth remembering that a CO achieving the rank of EO will usually involve a move to another branch of the Civil Service.
For example, if you live in Cavan and are a CO in the County, becoming EO usually means a Dublin posting for a couple of years ( until you can apply for a move back, which could take years).

batteriess

hillbloom wrote: »

Can you pick which test to start with. And can you spend as long as it takes you to do all the questions. In other words does it log you out if taking too long. I understand that would affect the results. I am dreading the Numerical!!

No you can't choose. You start off with basic questions about yourself (age, gender etc) then move onto verbal and end with numerical. It doesn't log you out or anything if you spend a long time on questions. Also you can't come back to questions, once you've clicked next there's no going back

Samuel T. Cogley

Cirrus Incus wrote: »

What exactly does the job of executive civil service entail? Is it just office work? Why is there so much competition for it? Is it job security that attracts people?

The roles are extremely diverse but generally it's a trainee management role. You will be given more responsibility than a CO, sometimes a little, in some areas a whole team reporting into you. It varies so much. But yes a good part of most people's role is piloting Microsoft Office.

I'd say the competition is fierce becuase of the security and because of progression. At worst over the lifetime of the (loooooong) scale you end up on 50K, at best you get promoted to HEO after 2 years (49K) and progress from there. There are opportunities for education, the service is generally very family friendly and if you land somewhere with Flexi - then happy days!

Edit: I think it adds to the competition that you don't need a full degree and people come to it from all ages.

Samuel T. Cogley

AngryLips wrote: »

What's an AO position relative to EO positions?

It is grade equivilant to a HEO but they start off at very similar to an EOs salary. I don't have much experiance with them as my department (until recently) didn't really have many. Personally I think it's much more of a training role than HEO at the begining, but arguably with more scope for upward progression to AP.

AO is considered the graduate recruting grade and requires atleast a 2.2 degree.

CivilCybil

Just finished it and felt it was quite tough. So annoyed because for one question I clicked next just as I realised I'd missed a bit of the question. It's a real pity you can't go back.

I've done previous ones and always scored pretty high in verbal and numerical reasoning. I'm don't think I failed but who knows. Was definitely tougher than previous ones I've sat.

westhamlady

Found the numeric one difficult at times, scanning the room I don't know if I did this properly, all well I can do it in 2 years time

Dean3y

Scanned my L-shaped room with my cumbersome out-dated laptop ( needs to be plugged-in as battery is gone). Tripped over cable. Might have captured more than the facial recognition requirements.
Best of luck to all, I found it tough myself.

CiboC

Just finished mine, verbal reasoning was grand but I agree I wish you could go back over an answer on the numerical part - One of my questions was poorly worded (deliberately I presume) and it was only in the subsequent question that it became clear how to read the data provided. I would have liked to be able to back and review the previous answer, although I may have gotten it right anyway...

The other thing was I certainly went well over the 15 minutes for the numeric part - but maybe that was a reflection of getting quite difficult questions towards the end (as in the number of calculations required to work out the correct answer). I'd be confident that I got them all correct mind you...

acbar

Has anyone completed this on their iPhone?

EO2019

Verbal fine here but found the numerical very graph heavy. Preferred the table questions from other years. Who knew I’d miss Energreen!

Balluba

Does anyone know if we are allowed to go BACK and review PREVIOUS answers?
Thanks.

CiboC

No, you can't go back once you have submitted an answer

Balluba

Thanks CiboC

job seeker

I am gonna leave it until Monday morning. I'll have to do the test where my dad works anyway. There is a spare empty office there, just too many people at home. No chance of not seeing someone in the backgroud looking for someting daft or asking me irrelevant questions..

Furious-Red

I just did the 6 questions examples that you can do in Sova and i got maybe 2 or 3 right on my own ha, the ratio and the final question scared me :pac:.

At this stage ill probably do it tomorrow morning

Blarney_man

Furious-Red wrote: »

I just did the 6 questions examples that you can do in Sova and i got maybe 2 or 3 right on my own ha, the ratio and the final question scared me :pac:.

At this stage ill probably do it tomorrow morning

I did a lot of tests online, even some of the paid ones and they were nothing compared to the real ones. Real ones were graph heavy, badly worded on purpose, you are naturally under pressure, you can't go back, they were really different, heavier this time around... The only hope is that average of 1a and 1b will be good for me, I think I did bad on numerical but very good on 1a and verbal

briancummins79

From the sound of everyone's experiences of the test , they were more difficult than usual. Does anyone know if the supervised tests will be going ahead? Or will they be called off because of covid, and thats why the aptitude was so difficult ?

MFPM

briancummins79 wrote: »

From the sound of everyone's experiences of the test , they were more difficult than usual. Does anyone know if the supervised tests will be going ahead? Or will they be called off because of covid, and thats why the aptitude was so difficult ?

It would seem that these are the supervised tests as the next stage is the e-tray.

Blueskies2019

briancummins79 wrote: »

From the sound of everyone's experiences of the test , they were more difficult than usual. Does anyone know if the supervised tests will be going ahead? Or will they be called off because of covid, and thats why the aptitude was so difficult ?

I thought the ‘supervised’ at home ie Stage 1B
replaced the Supervised test at PAS?
Previously you’d have done an
unsupervised at home and if you passed
that and depending on your OOM, get called
for the Supervised test.

westhamlady

When will the results be published

PinkLady2016

jaqqq wrote: »

Just finished my assessment and as I expected there was a lot of guessing in the numerical. I'm thinking one or two of those guesses may have been right as the next question was harder, but most of the time it was followed up by a softer one meaning it was wrong. There was one set of questions in relation to cars and mileage and it may as well have been written in Esperanto. Didn't come into it with any expectations having fared poorly in these numerical tests before but even this was a bit more than ones I have done previously I'd say. That's the end of the road for me anyway, best of luck to the rest of ye

Same here I thought the numerical was extremely hard. I didn't get one about cars but I got one about training courses and that was difficult. I don't really do well in them either. Just have to wait and see what the result is

gestappo

I wouldn't be the best at the numerical reasoning in general but with these new assessments, I am not looking forward to Tuesday morning now.

Dublintigger

gestappo wrote: »

I wouldn't be the best at the numerical reasoning in general but with these new assessments, I am not looking forward to Tuesday morning now.

It also looks like there are different questions for each participant.
I'm not looking forward to doing my assessment either but I'm just going to give it my best shot. I think that's all we can do.

jaffa20

Well that went terrible. I forgot to scan the room and desk before starting the verbal but did do it before the numerical. I guess i will fail on that alone

I hated the graphs with colour in the numerical because i'm colour blind so it took me extra time to figure those out. I don't even think i did that well in the verbal. Sometimes it's difficult to choose between "cannot say" and "false".