2020 Executive Officer Civil Service

Messi19

That was far harder than the last AO comp and I made it through to the video interview stage in that. A doddle compared to whatever the hell that was I've just sat through!

Madelyn

Connacht15 wrote: »

Surely, if the numerical test is next to impossible, other factors have to be taken into account in forming a panel!

If you dont pass the numerical you cannot go any further. This is to eliminate people. The batch going forward will be smaller.

Madelyn

Connacht15 wrote: »

How can you practice for that?

google E tray and you will get some practice material. You will get the idea of what is involved.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Connacht15 wrote: »

Surely, if the numerical test is next to impossible, other factors have to be taken into account in forming a panel!

It's not impossible, it's just a lot harder than previous ones. I did an AO one a few years back and it was a doddle. I barely had to switch my brain on to get through it. This one took me a lot longer to get through what felt like fewer questions. They're obviously looking to really narrow down the amount that progresses.

newbie18892

Madelyn wrote: »

google E tray and you will get some practice material. You will get the idea of what is involved.

Will look into that myself thanks.

Eod100

Thought it was much tougher than any EO competition I've done at this stage. The numerical reasoning were very tough. Not sure was it the way the questions were phrased or what but some of them reminded me of the if one car is driving at 30kph and another is driving at 40kph, what colour is one of them..

job seeker

Eod100 wrote: »

Thought it was much tougher than any EO competition I've done at this stage. The numerical reasoning were very tough. Not sure was it the way the questions were phrased or what but some of them reminded me of the if one car is driving at 30kph and another is driving at 40kph, what colour is one of them..

Answer: The red car and the blue car had a race. All red wants to do is stuff his face.

Birneybau

Madelyn wrote: »

The Etray is next on the agenda. Start practicing now. That is another head wreck.

I find the e-tray easier. Don't know what to make of my assessment earlier, I'm not disconsolate though.

pj12332

I consider(ed) myself fairly good at maths but that was difficult. Knowing time matters didn't help. I hold absolutely no hope I will pass or finish ahead of many if I did. Jesus I cant get over how much more difficult it was than I would have thought. Good luck to everyone else.

k8coconut

I'm trying to start assessment - but it seems clogged.....obviously many people procrastinated like me !

shaka

Going to give this a crack later , no prep done .

Can you use a calculator ?

Worried but from everyone's post the maths seem very difficult so everyone is in the same boat. Whatever happens happens

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

pj12332 wrote: »

I consider(ed) myself fairly good at maths but that was difficult. Knowing time matters didn't help. I hold absolutely no hope I will pass or finish ahead of many if I did. Jesus I cant get over how much more difficult it was than I would have thought. Good luck to everyone else.

I don't know if it's still the same but on previous ones I've done you weren't ranked for the maths, it was just pass/fail. Rankings were based off the personal assessment from stage 1A and the verbal reasoning from 1B.

whattoknow

Was everyone asked to scan the room? I was only asked for ID three times.

job seeker

whattoknow wrote: »

Was everyone asked to scan the room? I was only asked for ID three times.

I showed my id and scanned the room (badly) after, on the first recording. The second and third recordings I just sat there..

Augme

Madelyn wrote: »

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

The union won't give a **** tbh. I'd say there are very few civil servants at clerical officer in the union now a days who would be in for this competition.

AngryLips

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I don't know if it's still the same but on previous ones I've done you weren't ranked for the maths, it was just pass/fail. Rankings were based off the personal assessment from stage 1A and the verbal reasoning from 1B.

I have a feeling it won't be a binary pass/fail in this one. It can't be. They're probably changing the whole acceptance criteria to account for higher volumes of people applying.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

whattoknow wrote: »

Was everyone asked to scan the room? I was only asked for ID three times.

You're not specifically asked to scan the room, it's in the instructions on screen before you click "Allow" to start recording.
It says to make sure you have your ID, click record, show it clearly, then scan the room and your work space, in the same video.
The other recordings between each section are just to make sure it's still you at the computer.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

AngryLips wrote: »

I have a feeling it won't be a binary pass/fail in this one. It can't be. They're probably changing the whole acceptance criteria to account for higher volumes of people applying.

Yeah, to be fair I think it specified that it was pass/fail on previous ones. I don't remember seeing it in any of the literature this time.

thenightman

boyinterrupted wrote: »

Just did it there a moment ago. I agree that the verbal was quite ambigious and the numerical was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. I had been doing practise numerical tests for the last 2 weeks online and was doing fine but that numerical test knocked me sideways. Not feeling good about it at all.

I'm currently a CO in the civil service & have worked very hard the last 3 years and have gotten really posotive feedback from management about my performance. I just think it's a shame that I have to do a test to prove my worth even when my colleagues & managment have said I have been doing EO level work since I started. If I fail it's like saying "all that work you've done for the last 3 years means nothing because you didn't pass a test" >_<

Why can't you go for internal promotion then so? No exams involved. Just goes by how good you are at articulating experience on application form and at interview.

In these open competitions with so many applicants, they have to have a way of getting a shortlist from the thousands upon thousands of applicants somehow like.

job seeker

Green farmer wrote: »

I didn't know what to do, so showed my I.d every time and then scanned the room. Dont know if I've done it right or wrong, mainly because I was so focused on the exam.

I'd say you done what was required. There wasn't really any instructions for the 2nd and 3rd recordings from what I could see.. A bit unclear in that sense as far as I am concerned.

Green farmer

job seeker wrote: »

I'd say you done what was required. There wasn't really any instructions for the 2nd and 3rd recordings from what I could see.. A bit unclear in that sense as far as I am concerned.

Thank God, I was worried I'd missed some I instructions and did something wrong.

job seeker

Green farmer wrote: »

Thank God, I was worried I'd missed some I instructions and did something wrong.

Not that I'm aware of anyway..

UpBack1234

Yikes well that was a crash and burn experience.

Eod100

job seeker wrote: »

I showed my id and scanned the room (badly) after, on the first recording. The second and third recordings I just sat there..

Reckon with having to do that this will be the virtual and supervised one that used be in PAS so with covid?

furrybones

pj12332 wrote: »

I consider(ed) myself fairly good at maths but that was difficult. Knowing time matters didn't help. I hold absolutely no hope I will pass or finish ahead of many if I did. Jesus I cant get over how much more difficult it was than I would have thought. Good luck to everyone else.

I've always been great with numbers and solving mathematical problems, but I genuinely don't think I passed whatever the hell that car crash of a numerical test was.

briancummins79

Finished the test yesterday. Found the verbal one ok and like everyone else I found the numerical very difficult. Few of my answers didn't even match up to any of the 4 choices. Which is disheartening. Also it didn't help that the system crashed for a few minutes during the numerical test. I contacted them after the test and they referred me to the test provider. Probably won't make any difference to the result either way but worth a try.

From the looks of it everyone struggled with this test so it might mean a poor score will allow people to scrape through.
Who knows!

UpBack1234

furrybones wrote: »

I've always been great with numbers and solving mathematical problems, but I genuinely don't think I passed whatever the hell that car crash of a numerical test was.

I am genuinely confident I failed it also. Disastrous.

DCG27

Username265 wrote: »

Colleague of mine took the test yesterday and said it was way worse than any other civil service or other aptitude test she's ever done. She's a serving EO from last year's comp and she's hoping for a move.

She said verbal was a lot more vague than usual where a lot of the time one of the choices is heavily implied but they probably want you to pick cannot say instead. Said if you could explain why you were picking your answers then you could realistically make a solid case for 2 of the choices in some of the questions.

Numerical was horrible (she has a background in statistics). Said graphs were horribly laid out with a lot of the points on the graph being between the lines so you have to approximate what number it actually represents but its not entirely clear if the spacing is even consistent. Said guessing those numbers then threw off her avergages etc when calculating so she had to redo them. Genuinely couldnt figure out one of the questions with all four choices a good bit off from hers even with rounding up. Thinks the questions started off easy but seem to be harder from then on even though she believes she got a few wrong.

So seems most people are having a bad time with it. Might be a case where the required scores to pass get lowered. She had a bad time with it too so if you feel bad about your own performance you might not have actually done too bad.

If your colleague is already an EO can they not ask to move to another section without doing all the tests again?

Jay328

Just finished I am happy to get it done but dont think it went well. The verbal was fairly standard but still questioning every answer.

The numerical was tough. And then anytime I got an alright question I started thinking well I got the last one wrong and than I couldnt even get the answer to that one.

If nothing it was experience for the next competition

MFPM

thenightman wrote: »

Why can't you go for internal promotion then so? No exams involved. Just goes by how good you are at articulating experience on application form and at interview.

In these open competitions with so many applicants, they have to have a way of getting a shortlist from the thousands upon thousands of applicants somehow like.

I was thinking the same thing.