Moving from Teaching to Civil Service - Questions

highlighter123

Secondary teacher here, 5 years teaching, unhappy in the job for various reasons, looking for a move to the Civil Service. I've applied for the recent CO and EO competitions. I have left my teaching job because I was unhappy in the school, and have nothing set up now for September.

Questions:

1. When would I realistically be called for interviews for any of these CS competitions/positions? Should I casually sub for the year or should I get a full teaching contract sorted somewhere if nothing is going to happen until next summer - I've heard it's a slow process. I've been applying for other admin non-teaching jobs but no luck so far.
2. I am based in Kildare. For CO, I put down Kildare as my Number 1 location choice. But for EO, I am thinking I should put Dublin down as my location choice, because I thought there would be more available positions - is this the right move, or should I stick with Kildare? Any advice on this?
3. Was I right to apply for both competitions? How does this work? Could you be doing both processes at the same time for CO and EO in terms of interviews, tests etc.?

Ahshurlookit

1. Length of time to be called to the next stage depends on your order of merit after the aptitude tests. Impossible to tell how long exactly it'll take but for the current EO competition the first appointment is probably 3 months away.
2. Picking Dublin gives you a much better chance of being successful, the last few Dublin panels have been exhausted and they even launched a competition in 2023 solely to cater for the demands of Dublin based departments. That competition has called over 2,000 to interview in just over 12 months.
3. Absolutely right to apply for both. Both processes run independently of each other so dates to do exams etc could easily overlap.

Best of luck.