2020 Executive Officer Civil Service

Dublintigger

Well – I did the assessments this morning and I did find the Numerical was more challenging of the two. I finished The Verbal and was quicker than the 15 minutes; I did take longer over the Numerical. What threw me was the ambiguous language used in all of the questions – I had to reread the questions (both Verbal and Numerical) to get clarity and even then the wording was not that clear. My time in total was 37 minutes for both.
On Numerical, with the ambiguous language – some of my answers were either estimated – (taking the nearest given answer to my calculated answer) or I just guessed and then some of them were just easy to get - not too many of them!
Verbal – all I can say is read the short story carefully – check the question and then read the story again before you decide on your answer.
Numerical is mostly graphs and percentages – Verbal as straight forward but aware the language is ambiguous.
I just gave up getting frustrated and did the best I could.
Regarding the 360 panning of the room – and my desk, I tried to keep my face in the recording but failed when I went to film my desk – I was almost upside down which made me giggle, so here’s hoping the adjudicators have a sense of humour.
I was asked for my ID verification twice afterwards – after Verbal and after Numerical.
I cannot guess how I did – 5 minutes ago, I thought I did a dreadful assessment but to be honest, I do not really know. I have given it my best shot and its now fingers crossed it was enough to get through to the next stage.

gestappo

I think it's a quite a safe bet to place on my swift exit out of this campaign

Anonire

gestappo wrote: »

I think it's a quite a safe bet to place on my swift exit out of this campaign

Don't write yourself off so soon. The truth is nobody really knows what is counting towards oom and how the tests went. Only the scores will tell us that. Chin up and at least you have tried your best.

Dublintigger

gestappo wrote: »

I think it's a quite a safe bet to place on my swift exit out of this campaign

Ah come on - dont think like that it.


Give it your best shot - this new for all of us and none of us know how the marking is going to go.....

AngryLips

How long does it normally take to give results feedback from this?

Blarney_man

No one knows

Kerry gold

Can a calculator be used in the numerical test?

Madelyn

Kerry gold wrote: »

Can a calculator be used in the numerical test?

yes you can use a calculator.

LazyClouds

What time does the test window close on Wednesday? Yes I am procrastinating.

gestappo

Anonire wrote: »

Don't write yourself off so soon. The truth is nobody really knows what is counting towards oom and how the tests went. Only the scores will tell us that. Chin up and at least you have tried your best.

Dublintigger wrote: »

Ah come on - dont think like that it.


Give it your best shot - this new for all of us and none of us know how the marking is going to go.....

I practiced every day for the past couple of weeks so it’s a major disappointment to me. I did give it my best but I cannot see how I could pass.

gestappo

LazyClouds wrote: »

What time does the test window close on Wednesday? Yes I am procrastinating.

3pm on Wednesday I think.

AlohaLights

That was sh!t hard.

I actually worked for a company years ago that developed these types of Psychometric assessment for these types of recruitment drives and never saw questions like that for the numerical before. I think far too tasking personally and they'll have to apply some type of bellcurve, can't see too many people doing well but you never know

Dublintigger

gestappo wrote: »

I practiced every day for the past couple of weeks so it’s a major disappointment to me. I did give it my best but I cannot see how I could pass.

You are not the only one thinking like that - and not the only one feeling disappointed.

PAS have changed the process and no-one seems to know how this is marked so please stop beating yourself up.

You did your best - like we all did, so stop beating yourself up, congratulate yourself for completing the assessments and wait and see.

We could quite possibly be surprised at the end of the day.

Gus Ivey

Exactly.

Maybe you found it really hard because you were getting questions correct?

Madelyn

AlohaLights wrote: »

That was sh!t hard.

I actually worked for a company years ago that developed these types of Psychometric assessment for these types of recruitment drives and never saw questions like that for the numerical before. I think far too tasking personally and they'll have to apply some type of bellcurve, can't see too many people doing well but you never know

I see PAS having to rerun this again because the unions will get involved. The practice questions should be similar to the real test. No one knows how it is scored. On public jobs it says 8 needed to pass. With this there is no figure to aim for.
If so many people are complaining there is something wrong.

redmgar

Madelyn wrote: »

I see PAS having to rerun this again because the unions will get involved. The practice questions should be similar to the real test. No one knows how it is scored. On public jobs it says 8 needed to pass. With this there is no figure to aim for.
If so many people are complaining there is something wrong.

Which unions?

Blarney_man

AlohaLights wrote: »

That was sh!t hard.

I actually worked for a company years ago that developed these types of Psychometric assessment for these types of recruitment drives and never saw questions like that for the numerical before. I think far too tasking personally and they'll have to apply some type of bellcurve, can't see too many people doing well but you never know

I was thinking the same, very very hard for junior management position, you wouldn't get those examples in real life for sure as EO

Madelyn

redmgar wrote: »

Which unions?

FORSA. This is an internal comp also. If PAS has changed or moved the goalposts you can be sure the union will get involved.
The had to rerun the 2019 comp after the fiasco with outreach.

silent_spark

Madelyn wrote: »

I see PAS having to rerun this again because the unions will get involved. The practice questions should be similar to the real test. No one knows how it is scored. On public jobs it says 8 needed to pass. With this there is no figure to aim for.
If so many people are complaining there is something wrong.

That's just ridiculous. There's a difference between complaining and venting. Everyone is doing the same test so it's a fair process. Just because some people found it a challenge (me included!) doesn't mean they need to make it easier. For goodness sake! Talk about a race to the bottom.

Nekarsulm

If you are not already in the PS, how would the PS Union represent you?
And as you have decided to freely participate in an "Open" competition, even if you are a member of the PS Union, why would they help then either?

batteriess

Madelyn wrote: »

I see PAS having to rerun this again because the unions will get involved. The practice questions should be similar to the real test. No one knows how it is scored. On public jobs it says 8 needed to pass. With this there is no figure to aim for.
If so many people are complaining there is something wrong.

It's a job application, not the Leaving Cert. If you don't get through, other people still will. I wouldn't be holding my breath...

gestappo

Gus Ivey wrote: »

Exactly.

Maybe you found it really hard because you were getting questions correct?

PMSL!

I do tend to come down on myself pretty hard and have high expectations for my output.

They're done now, nothing to do but wait for results.

redmgar

Madelyn wrote: »

FORSA. This is an internal comp also. If PAS has changed or moved the goalposts you can be sure the union will get involved.
The had to rerun the 2019 comp after the fiasco with outreach.

What was the situation with outreach

Dalio

AngryLips wrote: »

Just finished mine. I have no idea how that went. I thought there was a lot of ambiguity in both the verbal and numerical tests where they left stuff open to interpretation. I was worried about my verbal performance because I didn't find the questions getting noticeably harder consecutively (for example the reading passages didn't increase in length etc, which is what I expected it would do if I was scoring well). There were two sections where I was required to do authentication but I wasn't sure if I needed to re-present my ID and scan the room again for these. I did so anyway, just in case, but thinking back on it now - I was sitting in a corner of the room and I didn't scan 360 the second and third time because it was just corner walls the other side. Relieved it's over and done with anyway. The questions were very vague, that's my only overriding impression.

Dublintigger wrote: »

Well – I did the assessments this morning and I did find the Numerical was more challenging of the two. I finished The Verbal and was quicker than the 15 minutes; I did take longer over the Numerical. What threw me was the ambiguous language used in all of the questions – I had to reread the questions (both Verbal and Numerical) to get clarity and even then the wording was not that clear. My time in total was 37 minutes for both.
On Numerical, with the ambiguous language – some of my answers were either estimated – (taking the nearest given answer to my calculated answer) or I just guessed and then some of them were just easy to get - not too many of them!
Verbal – all I can say is read the short story carefully – check the question and then read the story again before you decide on your answer.
Numerical is mostly graphs and percentages – Verbal as straight forward but aware the language is ambiguous.
I just gave up getting frustrated and did the best I could.
Regarding the 360 panning of the room – and my desk, I tried to keep my face in the recording but failed when I went to film my desk – I was almost upside down which made me giggle, so here’s hoping the adjudicators have a sense of humour.
I was asked for my ID verification twice afterwards – after Verbal and after Numerical.
I cannot guess how I did – 5 minutes ago, I thought I did a dreadful assessment but to be honest, I do not really know. I have given it my best shot and its now fingers crossed it was enough to get through to the next stage.

Thanks guys very helpful.

redmgar

I don't see on what basis the unions could get involved.
Because it was too hard?

Madelyn

redmgar wrote: »

What was the situation with outreach

It was online but the system crashed, some people tried for hours to log on with no success and no response to email or phone calls from pas.
Some people did the test but they decided to abandon it and rerun it again in Dublin.

No not because it's too hard but if is not as the practice ones people will complain. Forsa is a big union and there will be thousands of serving civil servants doing this comp

Dublintigger

Madelyn wrote: »

I see PAS having to rerun this again because the unions will get involved. The practice questions should be similar to the real test. No one knows how it is scored. On public jobs it says 8 needed to pass. With this there is no figure to aim for.
If so many people are complaining there is something wrong.

I really don't get why - that does not make any sense at all!!

Dalio

AngryLips wrote: »

How long does it normally take to give results feedback from this?

Check the booklet they give an estimate of when the interviews are and then work backwards remember there is an etray at STAGE 1c

Itchyfeet89

Hardest ever public jobs tests I have ever donr

owen28

Itchyfeet89 wrote: »

Hardest ever public jobs tests I have ever donr

I agree. I think verbal was ok. But numerical was a whole other experience. I guessed some answers and also picked some answers close to my calculations. If I pass I'll be very surprised.