Interdepartmental HEO

lanawinters

It was internal AGS

lanawinters

It was internal AGS

Skweefie

Maybe they meant the beginning of July? Damn this refreshing the candidate portal

08122019

Fairly sure they meant what they originally said. These competitions always get delayed. If anything they probably made things worse for themselves by getting the first round results back so quickly.

ilovethistles

I expect that they are shortlisting as we speak and the next message will be to inform us as to whether or not you passed and what your new oom is…

Im hoping we hear by the end of next week maybe…

Ber25

Is it that PAS are starting to shortlist the applications in early June or that the results of stage 2 will be out in early June? Difficult to tell from the message

ilovethistles

I understood it to mean they would begin the process in early June…

08122019

Successful candidates will be brought forward to stage 2 in early June…seems straight forward enough.

Merrymac

"Stage 2 of the selection process will consist of shortlisting. It is initially intended that all successful candidates from Stage 1 who selected Dublin as a location choice will be brought to Stage 2 in early June "

I took this to mean that shortlisting based on application forms was commencing early June with no indication of how long it would take to be completed and no confirmation if those brought through after Stage 2 would be invited to another test Stage or straight to interview 🤔

Ber25

Yeah. That's what I thought. I'd imagine it will be a while before we hear anything

VitreousLife

the wait is a killer!

Skweefie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119200952#Comment_119200952

I was joking... but yes I agree they probably just wanted stage 1 to go away so got the results out quickly. The reference to early June is a headmelt as early June has passed already. The other posters may have a point about the stage 2 process having started, we just wont be notified until they finish. Sigh, time will tell

DeEdge

Did anyone who did the retest after the pop up issue, find the different set of questions easier that the first set ?

Would love to know the stats of how many failed that stuck with their original results.

I have heard a few who narrowly just missed the cut.

Find it hard how PAS can base OOM on 2 different set of questions for the one test.

jules86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119210404#Comment_119210404

They were the same set of questions

Csk2019

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119210404#Comment_119210404

My experience was they were very similar.

caznemoy

I didn't have the same set of questions.. I found them more difficult the 2nd time though to be fair I didn't get to ans alot the first time as I was badly affected by the pop ups.

DeEdge

Oh, think PAS may have left themselves open on this one, if the same questions were issued in the retest, some could rightly say this put the ones who did the retest at an advantage.

DeEdge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119210576#Comment_119210576

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119210576#Comment_119210576

Wow, 2 sets of questions for the same competition can that be classed as fair to judge the OOM on for everyone fairly ? And some saying they received the same questions in the retest. PAS may have got this one wrong, could be reason why no additional updates from them

Acquiescence

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119210485#Comment_119210485

Do you know this to be true?

tgdaly

I don't personally think having done the same set of questions or different set makes any difference to the fairness of this. I think people are overthinking it. If you were doing the same set I don't think you'd even remember the content or the answers you gave first time around, especially since you're speed reading everything with little time to think about it. If you've done a different set they'd surely be no less difficult or more easy than the original set.

I declined to do a resit and stuck with my original tests. I don't personally have any problem with people having done resits. In fairness it has been a bit of a mess up by PAS though

DeEdge

Just has created so much doubt in the competition. Doesn't effect me to be honest, however still seems unjust for some. I have spoken to a few who declined the re-test (even though they had the pop up issue) and they narrowly missed the cut. Wonder if they did the retest with the new questions would they have made the cut, was the second set of Qs easier or harder that first test.

Was the same questions issued to some in the resit ? Which has been stated on here.

2 sets of questions for the one competition just doesn't seem right, how can they base the OOM fairly . Candidates based on one set and candidates based on another set.

Be interesting to see how many candidates failed the first set of questions and then passed the resit questions or visa verse. I'm sure PAS would have those stats

So much doubt for candidates.

PAS maybe should have advanced everyone and introduced a another test to short list or made everyone resit the test with the same questions. Pretty poor for HEO comp.

jules86

Well I didn't take note of every single question in both but I'm pretty sure they were the same but in random order.

dowdly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119211698#Comment_119211698

That's odd, when I resat the tests they had different questions. They definitely changed the names of companies and people.

08122019

I definitely didn’t get the same set of questions. The tabs were the same but the questions were different.

I’d take anyone saying they heard someone got the exact same set of questions with a pinch of salt. It tends to be an attempt to justify not doing as well as expected.

Csk2019

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119211515#Comment_119211515

I'm no fan of pas, but I'm not sure anyone would have thanked them for restarting the competition. To be fair everyone was offered a resit. In terms of different sets of questions, how do we know everyone got the same set to begin with? Previously, before proctoring they definitely used different questions for different candidates. I'm failing to see an issue here.

08122019

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206355#Comment_119206355

The stage one results are quantitative so can be done quickly. You can’t really do that with shortlisting, every application has to checked manually. Early June really looks like a commencement date based on the message so we could be waiting a while yet.

Honestly no idea why they don’t call people forward in batches for the interview stage once they are successfully shortlisted. The only way your OOM will change is if the people in front of you aren’t shortlisted, there won’t really be any major jumps. They could keep going through the OOM until they have 100 candidates shortlisted, call them batch 1 and then be shortlisting batch 2 while batch 1are being interviewed.

DeEdge

As I said this doesn't impact me in anyway, however I feel the values of the civil service and the HEO role standards are really tested here.

How could PAS now base it a fair competition with giving candidates a different set of questions to answer ? Surely a competition of HEO standards would need to have the same questions available to all candidates to be deemed a fair competition in order to base everyone's results fairly. To my knowledge it is this way at AP level.

This was a technical issue by the test provider that impacted majority of the candidates. Was this not tested before going live ? A flaw straight away in the test which creates doubts as if there were any additional faults with the test. Strange some I spoke with declined the resit and failed ,anyone I know who did the resit passed.

I don't think offering a resit was the answer as it seems so many were afraid to take a chance on redoing it, personal choice however a situation they shouldn't have been put in.

PAS could have easily said, due to this technical issue we have advanced your application to the next stage and then simply introduced a new test to shortlist.

avocadoator

I am sure there is more than one test available from the test provider. They would just have offered one of the same level of difficulty. It's not relevant imo. If the test is of a similar level of difficulty it makes no difference to the result. Every person was given the same choice - resit or don't.

If you achieved the level required you passed. It was unfortunate it happened but there's no point dwelling on it.

PS I choose not to resit and I passed

Csk2019

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119212719#Comment_119212719

I wouldn't agree with your comments about the Civil service and its value here. A mistake was made, pas put their hands up and offered a solution.

People being afraid to do a resit comes down to personal judgment and responsibility, I find it hard to say that pas should have made an unilateral decision (what about those who felt they did well on the initial test?)

I may be missing your meaning regarding a competition of HEO standards....whether a CO or PO comp, standards should be the same?

08122019

I don’t think it’s always the case where every candidate in a competition has been given the exact same set of questions. I know I’ve been in previous competitions with people and we’ve gotten different sets of questions.

Whether you ask ‘What’s 2 + 2’ or ‘What’s 3 + 1’ you’re testing the same thing and maintaining the integrity/validity of the process. Strange to try and repeatedly undermine something that doesn’t impact you in any way.