New 2021 Assistant Principal in the Civil Service

In relation to the SJ test. A lot of the statements made as to what you would do or not are obvious as a manager. Use your judgement but you need to always be mindful of the soft skills an AP must possess when making your choice.

This.

Like, what PO or Head of X or A/Sec is going to give those sort of scenarios to an AP and insist the AP provide the analysis? Even if they did give it to an AP who doesn't pass it on to an EO or HEO, you'd copy and paste the data into Excel and there's all your maths, done, in a couple of clicks? You want graphs? We can do them wholesale!

It is a hoop; through it, we must jump!

Since PAS has gone the way to 3rd party exams, the inconsistency of the level of the nummerical is all over the place. The goalposts just keep changing. For the 2016 HEO comp, the nummerical was more about being able to understand and deduce information from a graph, numbers, stats etc. A much more realistic take on the work someone in the civil service might need to do. Never in my CS career have I ever needed to figure out how much extra water I needed if I had a 3/4 full cup and spilled 1/2 of it but needed 50% more 😂

I have done all three tests I think it's fair to say I pretty much tanked the lot! I have done many serious professional exams in my life and even they weren't quite like those...🤣 Plus I noticed some spelling errors in the questions... do I get a bonus point for that? I am not sure that could save me so I will leave it be 😋

Not sure if this type of job/sector would be something I would be interested in. Or if I am the type of candidate they would be interested in!

But, having read about the process on this site down through the years and listening to friends/family, I submitted an application.

I did the test yesterday. Some things that struck me:

1) the situational assessment, it seemed fair enough. I could see (I think) what they were probing in each instance. The action taken should be specific to your role with consideration on impact on entire organisation. That said, if I retook it I'm sure I would struggle to answer the same way again.

2) verbal. Time pressure was tricky but got it finished. A few little trip hazards - double negatives etc.

3) numerical. The fonts used were atrocious. I had trouble distinguishing between 5 & 6, in some instances. Some sneaky footnotes, that were crucial, but easily missed. Time pressure was more pronounced in this, for me.

I got it finished but, when I was labouring, I began to do computations in my head and made best estimates. I reckon I did 80% of it properly - not that I expect that I got all of the 80% correct!

4) Seems like a very blunt instrument to get a candidate. But I can see the need for it, particularly when you have a popular competition.

5) The instructions said that you could stop numerical/verbal at any time but then you would return to the start.

Does this mean you could 'abort' if you were doing badly? Compose yourself and go again?? If so, are there different questions each time? If not, what is to stop you aborting it after 99% of it and returning to it having already had a look (or screen grab of the questions).

If the questions are different each time, how is it fair? I might get an easier run of questions compared to another.

If the questions are the same, but with different numbers, having an eyeball of them all in advance will allow you to hone your methodology for the final attempt.

Just a thought...

6) I can't see how you can practice or study in advance for such an assessment. Which is good, IMHO.

Anyways, that's my uninformed 2c's.

I did it last year. Got about 70% in verbal, 58% in numerical and lost out in SJT by two marks. Verbal this year I found ok and had some time left. Numerical was a disaster and was very similar to last year, graphs were a nightmare. Guessed most of them. Spent more time thinking through SJT this time. I do find practice helps. But numerical will drag me down this year.